


Family Dynamics

by soft_but_gremlin



Series: A Padawan at War (Again) [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Canon-Typical Violence, Force Bond (Star Wars), Gen, Grief/Mourning, Jedi Lineages (Star Wars), Jedi as Found Family (Star Wars), Mentioned Shmi Skywalker, Minor Character Death, Qui-Gon Jinn (mentioned) - Freeform, Spice (Star Wars), War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-20
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:08:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 30,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27645265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soft_but_gremlin/pseuds/soft_but_gremlin
Summary: Padawan Kenobi has survived his first battle as a General in the Clone Wars. Now all he has to do is find the grandmaster he's never met on a planet in hostile territory, acquire a Sith artifact from him, figure out how to reverse a curse, take care of the two younger Padawans with him, and make sure nobody dies.Easy, right?(Sequel toPadawan at WarandA Child in a War Zone)
Relationships: Anakin Skywalker & Ahsoka Tano, CC-2224 | Cody & Obi-Wan Kenobi, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Ahsoka Tano, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker
Series: A Padawan at War (Again) [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1792372
Comments: 367
Kudos: 597





	1. The Departure

“I don’t want you to go!”

Obi-Wan Kenobi sighed as he hugged the little blond that was currently clinging to him, and had, indeed, been clinging to him since before he’d even woken up this morning. “I know,” he said. “But the sooner I find the artifact, the sooner we can get back to normal.”

Tiny Anakin Skywalker had Obi-Wan’s tunics in a death grip that Obi-Wan was pretty sure was also Force-assisted. “Are you  _ sure _ I can’t come?” he sniffled.

“The Council doesn’t want you in danger. This sector has been secured, so you’ll be safer here than where I’m going,” Obi-Wan said patiently. They’d had this argument last night. His answer hadn’t changed.

“Why are they letting  _ you _ go into danger, then?” Anakin asked scornfully.

“Because I’m experienced,” Obi-Wan said. “I’ve had twelve years of training and been on dozens of missions. Besides, Count Dooku is my grandmaster. The journey might be dangerous, since Sevarcos is in Separatist territory, but I have nothing to fear from Count Dooku himself. He decided that he didn’t like being a Jedi, but I’m sure he still likes  _ me _ .”

Obi-Wan  _ wasn’t _ sure, actually, considering he’d never once met the man in his thirteen years as Qui-Gon’s padawan, but he wasn’t going to tell Anakin that. If Master Yoda was so certain that Count Dooku would help them, he probably didn’t  _ dislike _ Obi-Wan, at least.

He tried to pull away. Anakin buried his face in Obi-Wan’s tunic. “I don’t want you to go,” Anakin repeated. Mumbling, he said, “I just have a feeling it’s gonna go bad, and I don’t want you to  _ die! _ ”

“I promise not to die,” Obi-Wan said. “Okay?”

Anakin squeezed his sides. “Okay,” he mumbled. “ _ Please _ can I come?”

Obi-Wan decided he needed to use a different argumentative strategy. If Anakin could not be persuaded to give up his fear, then Obi-Wan needed to redirect it into a new goal. “No,” he said. “I need someone to stay behind just in case something  _ does _ go wrong, alright? Who’s going to be the rescue squad if both of us are in trouble and Ahsoka is stuck here?”

Anakin pulled back to look Obi-Wan in the eye, and nodded solemnly. “I’ll be your rescue squad,” he said.

“I can’t imagine anyone I would trust more,” Obi-Wan said. “But if you  _ do _ need to come rescue me, please do make sure to bring someone else who knows how to fly a ship in hyperspace, alright?”

“Okay,” Anakin said.

“Be good for Ahsoka, okay?” Obi-Wan said, as Anakin finally released everything but his hand.

“Ahsoka doesn’t  _ like _ me,” Anakin said.

“Ahsoka barely knows you,” Obi-Wan said. “I’m sure by the time I get back you and she will be best friends.”

“You don’t  _ know _ that,” Anakin whined.

“I can feel it in the Force,” Obi-Wan said, with a teasing smile.

“Banthashit,” Anakin said.

Obi-Wan sighed. “Don’t swear, Anakin.” 

He swung his pack onto his shoulder and stood up, wincing slightly as the blaster wound he’d managed to get in the last battle twinged. Medic Kix had said he needed to stay on light-duty restrictions for twenty-four hours, but Obi-Wan was starting to get the feeling that it was going to ache for a bit longer than that. 

Obi-Wan held out a hand, and asked, “Do you want to walk with me to the ship?”

Anakin nodded, and they made their way down to the hangar. Padawan Ahsoka Tano and R2-D2 were already there, and Commander Cody and Captain Rex were just finishing loading the last of the supplies for the trip.

Ahsoka threw her arms around Obi-Wan and hugged him tightly. He froze for a moment, but awkwardly hugged back.

“May the Force be with you, Master Obi-Wan,” Ahsoka mumbled into his tunics. “Stay safe.”

“And also with you,” Obi-Wan said, deciding not to correct her even though his title was  _ still _ Padawan. “Good luck.”

Ahsoka was incredibly reluctant to let go, and Obi-Wan idly wondered how he’d managed to become a single parent to two clingy padawans all before he’d even graduated to Knighthood himself.

But finally, she drew back. Obi-Wan unclipped Anakin’s lightsaber from his belt. “Hold onto this while I’m away?” he asked.

“Of course,” Ahsoka said, taking the lightsaber carefully, and clipping it to her own belt.

Anakin went in for another hug. Obi-Wan returned it. “Stay safe, Ani, and listen to Ahsoka.”

“Don’t die,” Anakin said.

Then Anakin stepped back to where Ahsoka was standing. The two younger padawans looked upset and lost, but were both clearly trying to put on a brave face.

Obi-Wan glanced over to Cody, who had his head resting against Rex’s while they quietly said their goodbyes. Something Rex said had Cody suddenly straightening up in affront, while Rex’s eyes conveyed silent laughter, and he was repressing a smile. Cody shook his head and ruffled Rex’s nearly nonexistent hair before murmuring a goodbye and joining Obi-Wan.

The two of them made their way to the bridge, and then stood in awkward silence for a moment before Cody said, “Sir, are you going to pilot?”

“Oh!” Obi-Wan said, suddenly full of dread. He wasn’t going to say  _ no, _ though. If piloting was a General’s duty, he didn’t really have a choice but to perform it. “Y-yeah, of course.”

Obi-Wan slid into the pilot’s seat, taking a moment to glance over the controls and make sure they were Republic standard. He took a deep breath, trying to release his fear into the Force. He could do this. All he had to do was manually take the ship out of the hangar and punch the coordinates. Autopilot could take it from there.

Cody watched his young General take command of the ship. He was well aware that Obi-Wan didn’t  _ like  _ flying, but the poor kid went whiter than a shiny’s armor when Cody asked if he was going to pilot. It was an honest question; Cody didn’t know at what age his General had  _ learned  _ to pilot. He could have taken over if Obi-Wan didn’t know how. All CCs had started pilot sims at age three, and moved up to real piloting at age five. Cody could guide a craft like this off the  _ Negotiator _ and into hyperspace blindfolded at this point.

Unfortunately, it seemed that his general’s habit of thinking that he had to do everything himself was a long-standing one. So now, Cody took the copilot’s chair in case he was needed, and watched as his General—who looked so painfully young without the beard and typical serenity—flicked switches with clinical precision and then gripped the yoke and throttle tightly enough that his fingers turned whiter than his face. Despite his palpable terror, Obi-Wan smoothly guided the ship out into space. Once they were a safe distance from the star destroyer, Obi-Wan punched in coordinates and engaged the autopilot.

“Good job, General,” Cody said, as the ship blasted into hyperspace around them. Rex always said that it was important to tell jedi padawans when they performed tasks correctly, not just when they needed corrections or did something that went above and beyond.

Obi-Wan gave him a look like he was trying to determine if Cody was mocking him. “...Thanks,” he said.

“If it helps, you’re not nearly so nervous about flying when you’re older,” Cody said. “And you took us through take-off today just fine.”

“Do I like flying? When I’m older?” Obi-Wan asked.

“Well, no, sir, not really,” Cody said. “But you’re very good at it.”

Obi-Wan seemed disappointed at that. “That’s better than I expected, I suppose,” he said.

“Sir?”

Obi-Wan shook his head. “It’s not important, Commander, my apologies,” he said. Then rising from the pilot’s chair, he said, “If you’ll excuse me, I need to meditate.”

Cody nodded his goodbye, and Obi-Wan left the bridge, likely heading for either cargo or their shared berth. Cody had already claimed the bottom bunk; it was easier to rush out to respond to an emergency when you slept on a bottom bunk, especially when you didn’t have Force magic helping you out. The underbunk storage was also a bonus, and not something a minimalistic jedi ever appreciated properly.

Cody double checked that the autopilot was fully operational and that everything was done correctly, and then stood up and stretched. If Obi-Wan was doing meditation, that meant Cody was going to be on his own for a few hours, if not the rest of the day. Unlike Skywalker, who could barely sit still for an hour, Obi-Wan meditated like it was his sole purpose in life. Not that he typically got the chance; they were often so busy that a fifteen minute caf break was the slowest part of their day. Perhaps it was like paperwork: if you missed a day, you had to do double the next day to catch up.

Frankly, Cody still didn’t get much about how Force stuff worked. Maybe the next time he was on Coruscant he could get together with Rex and Ponds and maybe Wolffe if he was there and they could compare notes. The way jedi talked about the Force was so airy and metaphorical; he needed  _ vode _ input to figure out how things  _ actually  _ worked.

Cody headed for the galley of the ship. There was no holonet in hyperspace, but he could still do paperwork, even if he couldn’t send it. He made himself a cup of caf—instant, unfortunately—and returned to the bridge to work.

Ahsoka watched as the little ship took off, and she prayed that Obi-Wan’s mission was a success. She’d felt a brief flash of fear in the Force from him before it had been shielded away, and that fear was echoed by Anakin for a moment as the ship departed. Then, as the ship disappeared, Anakin's fear turned into nervousness and worry.

Ahsoka mentally leaned into Rex’s sturdy confidence in Cody and Obi-Wan. Initiate Anakin’s emotions were a lot more intense and a lot less shielded than Skyguy’s emotions, and if she let herself be influenced by them too much, she and Anakin were going to end up in a feedback loop of misery. Rex patted her shoulder, almost like he could tell what she was doing in the Force.

Beside her, Anakin crossed his arms and looked down at the floor, muttering something about Obi-Wan in Huttese. Ahsoka still didn’t know much Huttese, but it didn’t sound very polite.

“What was that?” Ahsoka asked.

“Nothing, Pa—Ahsoka,” Anakin mumbled, flinching.

R2-D2 squawked something close to “Bold words coming from  _ you.” _

Anakin glared and said “Oh,  _ e chu ta _ , R2.”

R2-D2 trilled a droid laugh and zipped off.

“What’s... _ e chu ta? _ ” Ahsoka asked.

Anakin cringed a bit. “I don’t...I don’t know how to say it in Basic,” he said. “Obi-Wan can probably tell you. When he gets back. Um...don’t say it to people until you know what it means though.”

Something rude then, Ahsoka surmised. She’d ask R2-D2 later. Artooie was much more likely to tell her what it actually meant than Master Obi-Wan was.

Although...Obi-Wan wasn’t currently a Master. Maybe he would be more inclined to teach her swear words in different languages now.

“Commander Tano, Captain Rex,” Captain Gregor greeted, joining them with a salute. Slightly behind him was Waxer. Once they dropped the salute, Gregor nodded at Anakin. “Hi cadet.”

“Let me guess,” Ahsoka said. “It’s time to get to work?”

At Captain Gregor’s nod, she gestured for him to lead the way. He turned back the way he had come, and marched towards the exit of the bay. Waxer and Rex automatically fell into step.

Ahsoka held out her hand. After a moment’s hesitation, Anakin took it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone I'm back!
> 
> The rough draft currently stands at 12 chapters, but if this ends up being less than 20, I will be very surprised lmao. Updates will be every Friday as long as all goes to plan. You can also check out my [tumblr](https://itstimeforstarwars.tumblr.com/), which is where I post updates when things do not go to plan among all the star wars memes I reblog and all the chit chat about writing I do.
> 
> Tags will be updated as the story progresses, but I think I got most of them.


	2. The Arrival

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cody and Obi-Wan arrive on Sevarcos while Ahsoka and Anakin learn a bit more about each other.

Moving meditation was better for ships, Obi-Wan had found out over the last several years. It was easier to focus when it was harder to hear the rumbling of the engine, and when he couldn’t feel the vibrations of the ship going through space, reminding him that he was _not_ on solid ground.

And he needed to practise a form that wasn’t so acrobatic, in case they had to go into battle again. Ataru simply did not cut it when he was going up against _hundreds_ of opponents.

So, Obi-Wan made his way to the cargo bay, moved some things out of the way, and slowly moved through the first kata of Shii-Cho, making sure to turn his lightsaber down to training level. The _zhwarm_ of each lightsaber movement was comfortingly loud as he tried to remember where in the kata each specific movement went.

It wasn’t as difficult for him to return to the first form as it might be for his friends. Master Qui-Gon had kept him practicing the basic form until he was eighteen, and even after that he’d still often had Obi-Wan go back to it at random. It used to annoy Obi-Wan, who had thought that Qui-Gon kept him on the basics because he didn’t think Obi-Wan was capable of moving beyond that.

They’d had a fight about it, once, and he’d finally managed to learn why Qui-Gon had done it. Qui-Gon had explained that he wanted Obi-Wan to be so grounded in the fundamentals that they were instinctive, because it was basics and fundamentals that were the most likely to protect a Jedi in battle.

Sometimes, Obi-Wan wondered if Qui-Gon had known what would become of his last Padawan. He was a Master of the Living Force, not the Cosmic Force, but...it wasn’t as if he’d never had visions of the future.

And he did have all those stupid prophecies.

Then again, Obi-Wan had been trouble since before Qui-Gon had met him. Considering how often people tried to kidnap, murder, or otherwise harm him throughout his padawancy, perhaps Qui-Gon could just read the writing on the wall.

Obi-Wan yelped as he twisted wrong and suddenly, and _painfully_ , remembered that he was on light-duty restrictions, and for a _reason_. He gasped, hand over his burn, and did his best to gracefully sink to the floor. It was fine, he was _fine_ , and really, sitting meditation wasn’t so bad aboard a ship. Although, Kix had _also_ told him that using the Force was _not_ light-duty, which meant that all he could do for sitting meditation was _thinking,_ and _feeling_ , and _feeling the vibrations of the ship_ , the ones that made him nauseous and nervous if he thought about them too long, and he didn’t even have Master Plo here to ramble about the particular distinctions of whatever ship they were on, or Master Qui-Gon to sigh irritably that Obi-Wan had gotten distracted from the original intent of the meditation _again_ —

Obi-Wan sighed irritably himself. He wished Qui-Gon were here. But he was not, and Obi-Wan had to accept that.

But it troubled him all the same. He _knew_ Qui-Gon would have been better at this than he. His Master was, well, a master at manipulating many threads at once, able to plan in three dimensions when Obi-Wan could barely connect two dots. Worse, everyone _else_ could see it too. Even _Anakin_ had pointed out that Qui-Gon would be handling things better than he was.

Twice.

In the last three days.

Obi-Wan took a deep breath, and tried to focus. He just needed to think. He just needed to think like Qui-Gon, and do what Qui-Gon would do, and then maybe everything would work out. Not that it was _easy_ to think like Qui-Gon. His Master had been baffling at the best of times, and it wasn’t exactly like Obi-Wan could ask for clarity _now._

Except...

Perhaps, in lieu of his Master, he might be able to ask his Grandmaster for advice.

Four hours later, Cody was drinking another cup of caf, and Obi-Wan emerged from wherever he’d been meditating to make tea in the galley. He looked awful, honestly, but he walked in a more settled way, and the tension in his shoulders had gone from an eleven to about a seven, so Cody assumed the meditation had been helpful.

As he waited for water to boil, Obi-Wan suddenly frowned and unclipped his lightsaber, studying it intensely. He held it out in front of him, then swung it from side to side, until stopping with it directly between him and Cody.

“My lightsaber likes you,” he said.

Cody nodded, slowly, setting down his cup of caf and looking up from his datapad. “You’ve mentioned that before. Something about kyber crystals.”

Obi-Wan frowned deeper. “It barely even likes _me_. Why does it like _you_?”

Cody did not bristle in offense, though Obi-Wan immediately flinched, seeming to realize how rude he’d been. His poor General did not remember the last decade of his life, he couldn’t be blamed for finding weird Force shit upsetting. 

“I don’t know, sir,” Cody said, honestly. “Perhaps because I don’t drop it in the middle of every battle.”

Obi-Wan _did_ bristle in offense. “I wouldn’t—I just—am I really so _bad_ at fighting?”

“You’re very _good_ at fighting,” Cody said. “But you _do_ drop your lightsaber a lot. Lucky for you, it nearly always drops somewhere close to me, and I’ve got a clip on my belt for it so it doesn’t get lost.”

Obi-Wan reflexively gripped his lightsaber tighter, pulling it closer to him. Cody sighed. He wasn’t sure if this Obi-Wan had _more_ problems than his Obi-Wan, but he was definitely worse at _hiding_ them.

The kettle squealed, and Obi-Wan jumped, activating his lightsaber. Then, flushing deep red, he deactivated it and clipped it to his belt. He turned away from Cody quickly, busying himself with making tea.

Yes, this one definitely had a _lot_ of problems.

“You should eat, too,” Cody said. It was slightly past lunchtime now, and he knew Obi-Wan hadn’t eaten yet.

“I _don’t_ need a—” Obi-Wan started, and then cut himself off with a deep breath. “Thank you, Cody,” he said instead. “Would you like some tea?”

“I have caf, but thank you, General,” Cody said.

Obi-Wan made his tea in silence, and grabbed a gillypod-flavor ration bar. Cody wasn’t sure that a gillypod bar would go well with Obi-Wan’s current choice of tea, but he decided to keep that opinion to himself. The General was already defensive from embarrassment, and Cody hoped that tea and rations might take the edge off of Obi-Wan’s irritation.

Cody turned back to his reports. He had a feeling this trip was going to be...very interesting.

Anakin had been very quiet today as he followed Ahsoka around the ship, moving from minor disaster to minor disaster, working on paperwork, observing the men at work. If he wasn’t so loud in the Force, Ahsoka would have spent the entire time looking back and making sure that Anakin was still with her.

Ahsoka was worried about him, but she was also very busy, so she decided that she’d figure it out later. He wasn’t _upset_ —or at least, he was no more upset than he was when Obi-Wan had left this morning—so she figured it could wait, for now.

Plus, she figured that if he was upset with her, he wouldn’t have been holding her hand all morning. He hadn’t been shy about showing when he was unhappy with her actions, so she figured he just missed Obi-Wan.

About half an hour before lunch, she had to run back to their quarters for a datachip. She took her time finding the chip, giving them both a bit of a break.

“You doing okay, Skyguy?” she asked.

He took a moment to consider his response, before finally admitting, “I’m cold.”

“Hm,” she said. She tried to think of if Anakin had any short jackets, but couldn’t come up with any, so she went to her own room. Thirty seconds later, she reappeared with her winter coat and her Temple cloak. “Which one do you want to wear?”

He hesitated, then reached for the winter coat. Ahsoka thought that surely he couldn’t be _that_ cold, but tossed it to him anyway.

Anakin wriggled into it and zipped it up. The coat almost brushed the floor, and his face was practically buried in the fur that lined the hood. He pushed the sleeves up enough that they didn’t cover his hands, but Ahsoka had a feeling that was going to be a battle he’d be having for the rest of the day.

“Wow!” Anakin said with a grin. “This coat’s _really_ warm!”

Ahsoka smiled back, careful not to show teeth. “I would hope so,” she said. “I got it for snow missions.”

“What’s snow?”

“It’s frozen water that falls from the sky when it’s cold—”

“There’s planets where water falls from the _sky?_ ” Anakin asked. “For real? Like not with a vaporator or anything?”

“Does it...not rain on Tatooine?” Ahsoka asked. At Anakin’s blank look, she clarified, “Rain is water that falls from the sky but it’s not frozen.”

“You have to use a vaporator to get water from the sky on Tatooine,” Anakin said. “It’s like a well, but for the air, and not owned by the Hutts.”

“Wow,” Ahsoka said. “Well, most places aren’t like that. There’s lots of water on most planets, and water that’s on the ground evaporates into the air when it gets hot, and when enough of it gets into the sky, it makes clouds that get heavier and heavier until they get too heavy and the water falls back out of the sky, and that’s rain. Or snow, if it gets cold enough.”

Anakin looked like he simply couldn’t believe that such a thing was possible. Ahsoka was equally baffled by the fact that he’d _never_ seen rain.

She found the datachip, and slipped it into a pocket. Before they left again, though, she asked, “Hey Skyguy, do you want to draw while we do paperwork? You seemed kind of bored when we were working earlier.”

Anakin nodded, and she grabbed the sketchbook and colored ink styli that older him kept in the living room. She knew that older Anakin tended to doodle when he needed to think and didn’t have something mechanical handy to tinker with, so she figured that would be an enduring trait. She was pleased to see that she was correct.

The two of them returned to the office where she and Rex were currently working. While she popped the datachip into her datapad and started working, Anakin flipped open the sketchbook to a blank flimsi and started drawing, frowning with concentration.

He looked stunningly like older Anakin at that moment, and Ahsoka couldn’t help staring. Something was off though, and she frowned for a moment, trying to figure it out—

“You’re _right_ -handed?” she asked.

“Yeah?” Anakin asked, puzzled and a bit nervous. “Is that bad? Most Humans on Tatooine are.”

Ahsoka knew that Anakin tended to prefer the right-handed grips for combat, but for writing, or tinkering, or eating, or most delicate or fiddly work with his hands, Anakin had always favored his _left_ hand.

“It’s not _bad_ ,” Ahsoka assured. “I just...I thought you were left-handed.”

“Oh,” Anakin said. “Well I’m not.”

He turned back to his drawing. After a moment, Ahsoka turned back to her paperwork.

When lunch rolled around, Ahsoka asked if she could see what Anakin had been drawing. With a frown, he shoved the sketchbook over to her.

It wasn’t as practiced as his artwork would be when he was a Knight, but he was surprisingly good for a nine-year-old. She didn’t recognize _who_ he’d drawn, but she recognized _what_ he’d drawn.

On the paper was a figure in a black cloak. One hand held a red lightsaber, while the other was outstretched to shoot lightning from his fingertips.

“What’s this?” she asked.

“That’s the bad man from my dream last night,” Anakin said. “He kept asking me to join him to save Padmé, but I didn’t want to join him, because he was really scary and I thought he was lying. And then he said that the Jedi hated me and were going to kick me out of the Order if they knew about me, but I know that’s _poodoo_ cuz you said that I grow up to be your teacher, so I decided to wake up.”

“I see,” Ahsoka said. “You have some wild dreams.”

“I guess,” Anakin said noncommittally.

Ahsoka smiled and shook her head a bit. “Come on Skyguy, let’s go get some food. You coming Rex?”

“I’ll catch up,” Rex said. “I want to finish reading this first.”

“Alright, see you in a bit,” Ahsoka said, leading Anakin out of the office.

It did bother her a bit, that he was having nightmares about the Sith, but no doubt Obi-Wan had explained to him what Sith were at some point and Anakin’s imagination was just running wild. It wasn’t as though hers didn’t do the same thing. The amount of times she’d had nightmares about Ventress, or Dooku, or Grievous…

Anakin suddenly squeezed her hand tighter. She looked down to see him looking up at her with worry.

“What’s wrong, Skyguy?”

“You’re upset,” he said.

Ah. So he _could_ interact with their bond, though he didn’t seem to be doing it consciously. Either that, or she was doing a terrible job of keeping it off her face.

“Sorry,” she said. “I just let my thoughts get carried away.”

“Oh,” Anakin said. After a hesitation, he asked, “Is that a Jedi thing? Whenever Obi-Wan starts thinking for too long, he gets upset too.”

“No, that’s not a Jedi thing,” Ahsoka said. “I think the three of us are just prone to brooding.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Bad habit, I guess.”

“Oh,” Anakin said, looking down at the floor.

“That doesn’t mean you have to start doing it, though,” Ahsoka teased. “Race to the mess hall?”

“Yeah, okay,” Anakin said neutrally, and then immediately went into a flat-out sprint.

Ahsoka grinned and took after him, calling out directions as they went so Anakin wouldn’t get lost.

Maybe he was finally starting to warm up to her.

There was the warning chime that they were about to drop out of hyperspace, and Cody and Obi-Wan made their way back to the pilot’s and copilot’s chairs.

Upon reentry into real space, they were almost immediately flanked and hailed by two Separatist ships.

“Unknown vessel, identify yourself and transmit codes immediately,” a tinny voice called over the comm. _Droids_. “If you do not, we will shoot you down.”

“Yeah, sorry, sorry,” Obi-Wan said. “New ship, you know?”

He reached for the button that would transmit the code. Cody caught his wrist before he could, giving a shake of his head. Cody fiddled with a few things on his side of the ship first, and then hit the button himself. Obi-Wan raised an eyebrow, but decided he would ask later.

“That ship doesn’t look so new to _me_ ,” another tinny voice muttered.

“Shut up, 9-324!” the first one snapped.

“Oh look, the codes!” the second one said.

There was a pause for a moment, and then the first one said, “ _Gloryhawk_ pilot, identify yourself and your purpose in this airspace.”

“I’m Ben,” Obi-Wan said. “Ben Jinn. I’m here for...business.”

The droids on the other end of the line were silent. The silence stretched for long moments, until Cody thought they were going to have to cut and run, and he was just about to suggest such a thing to the General, when finally—

“We’re sending you coordinates for the spaceport you will land at.”

“Thank you,” Obi-Wan said. Once the coordinates were sent, the droids ended the comm.

The two of them breathed a sigh of relief as Obi-Wan steered them towards the planet. Safe, for the moment.

Then, Cody scowled. “Ben Jinn is _not_ the name on your fake Ident,” he said.

“We _have_ fake Idents?” Obi-Wan asked.

Cody looked at him in bewilderment for a moment, before he sighed. Right. Obi-Wan was still new to all this. “Remind me next time to make sure and go over the mission before we _leave_ ,” he said. “I was going to do it when we landed, but I think that was a poor decision.”

“I was there when the Council assigned us this mission!” Obi-Wan protested. “They didn’t say anything about fake Idents!”

“It’s standard operating procedure when we’re in Separatist territory,” Cody said. “But you wouldn’t have known that. That’s on me for forgetting you don’t _know_ the standard operating procedures. At least you didn’t give them your real name though.”

Obi-Wan frowned at that, and said, “At least we’re in the Outer Rim. Sevarcos probably doesn’t even have Port Authorities, or if they do, it’ll be pretty lax security.”

“Dooku’s supposed to be on this planet,” Cody said. “And considering we’ve already been approached by Separatist forces, I don’t think security’s going to be _lax_ , sir.”

“I suppose...you’re probably right,” Obi-Wan said. “Hopefully Port Authorities are sentients, not droids. I can—I can fix this if they’re sentients.”

“And if they’re droids?”

Obi-Wan’s mouth pressed into a thin line, clearly stressed already. “I’ll figure something out,” he said.

Then, tensing even further, Obi-Wan brought them downwards, and into the atmosphere.

Once they’d landed, the two of them moved quickly to change into clothes that would seem far less out of place on Sevarcos. Cody removed his armor to replace it with Nubian low-profile armor and a poncho over both that and his blacks. Obi-Wan stripped his upper layers until he was down to his undertunic, and added a spacer’s jacket, hiding his lightsaber in an interior pocket. As they changed, and as Cody put anything that might be incriminating into a hidden compartment in the berth, he briefed the General on undercover SOP.

“If you’ve got any Republic credits on you, hand them over now,” Cody said, tossing Obi-Wan a small pack. “That’s pocket litter for you. Your Ident—I believe that one says Kallen Kryza—some wupiupi, couple of ration bars—”

Cody didn’t miss the look Obi-Wan had given him at that last one.

“—just whatever you’d normally carry in your pockets. The story is that we’re two regular spacers and we may or may not be smugglers, try to stick to that, and if you make anything up about me, make sure to tell me so I can play along. _My_ Ident has the name Jaden Tookaren, so memorize that and don’t call me by anything else while we’re here.”

“Alright,” Obi-Wan said, putting on a filtration mask and then a pilot’s helmet. The air on Sevarcos was thick with spice; filtration was required if you wanted any chance at staying sober. Cody had a similar attire.

Cody handed over a holster with a Sevari flashpistol in it. He couldn’t see Obi-Wan’s expression as the Padawan took the pistol, but he didn’t have to. “You’re a spacer, you need a weapon,” Cody said, preemptively cutting off the argument. “It’s not a blaster, unfortunately, but the planet’s too much of a hazard for blasters _or_ lightsabers. It’s a single shot, but I have four, so you can take another one.”

“I very much doubt I’ll even need this one,” Obi-Wan said.

Cody gave him a very, very dry look at that, and pointedly attached two holsters to his belt. He held out the last pistol to Obi-Wan, and with a huff, Obi-Wan took it.

“I’d like to try and stick together as much as possible,” Cody said. “Less possibility of things going wrong that way.”

“Good idea,” Obi-Wan said.

Cody glanced at the chrono as he put his mask and helmet on. It had already aligned itself with local time, and it was apparently only mid-morning where they were. He held in a sigh, preparing for a long, dangerous day.

“Plan?” Cody asked.

“Find Dooku, get the artifact, get out before the Separatists realize we’re here?” Obi-Wan said, more of a question than a statement.

Cody nodded. That would do. Most of their partner missions were entirely improv anyway; more planning than that and the plan would fall apart immediately.

“Don’t do anything dramatic,” Cody said. “We don’t want to attract attention.”

Obi-Wan straightened in offense. “I’m not my Master,” he said. “I don’t do _dramatics_.”

“Says the one who was backflipping off of droids two days ago.”

“That’s how Ataru _works_ , that’s not _my_ fault!”

“Mm-hm,” Cody said jokingly. “Sure.”

The two of them bantered all the way to the gangplank, which Cody lowered.

The banter cut off suddenly as a hulking Trandoshan in uniform approached the gangplank, three other uniformed security officers flanking her. “Which one of you is Ben Jinn?” she rasped.

Obi-Wan froze for just a moment, but it was enough for the Trandoshan to immediately lock on to him. She glared him down until he admitted, “I am.”

“Your Ident, if you will,” she said.

“You don’t need to see my Ident,” Obi-Wan said, in that tone that Cody recognized as his using-the-Force-to-convince-people tone.

“ _Ident_ ,” she growled, and Obi-Wan cringed.

Cody tried to keep himself relaxed. It was no good panicking until the situation called for it.

Obi-Wan reached into his pocket, and pulled something out. “Will this do?” he asked sweetly, depositing it into her hand.

Cody tried to see what it was without moving. Coin, he believed. If he knew his Huttese currency correctly, Obi-Wan had just handed over about eighty credits worth of bribe.

The Trandoshan gave him a hard look for a moment, and Cody worried that it wouldn’t work, but then she said, “It appears your Ident is valid,” and Cody breathed a sigh of relief. “However,” she continued, “there are certain forms that you need to fill out before you may leave this spaceport. Come with me.”

“Alright,” Obi-Wan said easily. “Come along, Jaden.”

“No,” the Trandoshan said. “ _He_ stays until everything is square.”

“He’s my partner,” Obi-Wan argued. “Where I go, he goes.”

“In that case, you can either go right back up to space, or you can go to a holding cell.”

Obi-Wan glared at her a moment, then looked back at Cody.

Cody didn’t want to be separated from his Jedi, but refusing to cooperate would make this much harder.

“Go ahead, Captain,” Cody said. “I’ll keep an eye on the ship ‘til you get back.”

There was a hesitation, but then Obi-Wan nodded and turned back to the Trandoshan.

Cody tried not to worry as Obi-Wan disappeared into the building, and the other three security officers took up positions outside their ship. Obi-Wan had told him, in the past, of undercover missions he’d been on as a cadet. Cody just had to have faith in him, that’s all.

Still, he had a bad feeling about this.


	3. The Grandmaster

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Somehow, neither of them were expecting this.

Count Dooku had just finished negotiating a treaty for increased protections of the Sevari spice trade within the CIS when he’d gotten the notice of a suspicious, possibly Republic, ship entering Sevari space. They’d had legitimate codes, though, and Dooku had been about to chastise the security droids for wasting his time when he’d heard the name that the pilot had given.

Ben Jinn.

Ben _Jinn._

Idly, Count Dooku wondered which remnant of his lineage had come to seek vengeance for what he’d done to the Negotiator and the Hero Without Fear. And it _had_ to be from his lineage, no one else would have chosen a name so specifically.

Count Dooku assumed it would be Rael. Feemor might be the ideal choice for undercover work in enemy territory—he wasn’t prone to dramatics, he kept a steady head, and he had the combined knowledge of all the tips and tricks that Qui-Gon, Rael, and Dooku had ever picked up that were useful for undercover and Outer Rim work. Had he not been part of their lineage, specifically, he might have been tapped for Shadow work, and he could have been very good at it. 

But Feemor had been repudiated. He had been cast out of their lineage, and the hurt from that had run deep. The last time Dooku had talked to Rael—two years before Qui-Gon died, had it really been over a decade already?—Feemor and Obi-Wan had never even met.

No, Dooku doubted that it would be Feemor who tracked him down for the sake of his estranged padawan-brother. But Rael? Why, Dooku’s first padawan had never met a child that he didn’t immediately feel the need to protect, and that went doubly so for lineage members.

And of course, Rael had been _furious_ when he’d discovered that Dooku had joined the ranks of the Sith. Dooku had practically been able to feel Rael’s anger and betrayal from all the way on Serreno. Truly, he could have made an excellent Sith of his first padawan if Rael wasn’t so foolishly attached to the Light. His first padawan had always been arrogant and emotional, it was simply too bad that he’d become a master at merely accepting and releasing those feelings, rather than _using_ them to their fullest extent.

Or at least, Rael never used them except to be _petty_ towards the man who’d raised him.

When the war had started, Rael had sent him comm messages every single week. Most of them were angry, furious rants about how he couldn’t believe that Dooku had turned his back on the Jedi Order, and _him_ specifically. Rael, who knew Dooku best and therefore knew exactly how to land blows that hurt, had also sent several messages about how Dooku’s fall was an _insult_ to Qui-Gon’s memory, as though Dooku didn’t do everything _because_ of Qui-Gon, _because_ the Jedi Order had become so complacent in their power that they had gotten _his padawan_ killed, _murdered_ over a trade treaty that the Senate couldn’t be bothered to deal with themselves. 

Not all of the messages were so accusatory, though. Some of them were lonelier in tone, or more betrayed, or simply sad. As the war went on, they became more neutral in tone, more of the dry humor that he’d had when they were lineage. Rael would make fun of Dooku’s droids, or battle strategy, or his new apprentices. Rael never said or showed anything that had given Dooku intel on where he was or what he was doing. His first padawan was so very, very smart, and he had always used that intelligence most when he was doing something to be a pain in the ass to his poor old Master. 

So, not _once_ during the war had Dooku received any intelligence about Rael’s whereabouts. He had never seen a battle report that mentioned Rael leading the charge, had no glimpses on security cameras of his former padawan sneaking into top-secret installations, had heard no complaints from other Separatist leaders of a ragged-looking Jedi trying to convince them to return to the Republic. The only evidence that Dooku had had that Rael was even still _alive_ were his weekly comm messages. 

He never answered them, of course.

The messages had stopped suddenly two months ago. Dooku hadn’t known if Rael had simply given up without so much as a final goodbye, or…

Well, he couldn’t have been killed if he was showing up today to wreak vengeance upon his former Master.

So Dooku would wait for his padawan. It would be good to see him, regardless of the outcome. It had been nearly twenty years since he’d last seen Rael in person. Dooku didn’t regret his decisions, but he missed his padawan. Rael was the first child he’d ever raised, and the only one who remained, and while Dooku certainly didn’t pick favorites (among his _padawans_ , at least, it was a different story with his Sith apprentices), Rael had grown up to be not just his former padawan, but a very good friend, in a way that his other two padawans had never quite done. Rael had always been closer to Dooku, almost more...attached, than the other two. More like a son than a student. And Dooku had never been the best at discouraging attachment.

He was, in fact, a little attached himself.

It would be good to see Rael.

Obi-Wan had a bad feeling about this.

Not, specifically, about following the Trandoshan. She seemed rather indifferent to his existence. She was dangerous, sure, in the way that most citizens of the galaxy and of the Outer Rim in particular were dangerous if pressed, but she didn’t ring in the Force as any particular threat to Obi-Wan.

But _something_ was going to happen, and it twisted Obi-Wan’s stomach into knots.

The air was also thick with Darkness. Sevarcos was a miserable planet, and while the planet wasn’t necessarily naturally aligned to the dark side, decades or maybe even centuries of being a wretched hive of scum and villainy had left its traces in the Force, the way decades or maybe even centuries of spice mining had left its traces in the air.

Still, there was a wisp of...familiarity, somehow, in the Force. Obi-Wan couldn’t say exactly what it was, but... it felt like…

Well, oddly enough, it reminded him of breakfasts on weekends at the Temple, when Qui-Gon would make Yancakes—the only thing Obi-Wan had ever seen him cook successfully—and then they’d do something relaxing and fun for most of the day, like bully Master Rael into playing Sabacc with them or walk through the gardens with Master Plo and any of Obi-Wan’s friends that he could round up.

It was a baffling impression, leaving Obi-Wan confused as it faded into the Force, right up until the Trandoshan official opened up a door and gestured for Obi-Wan to go inside. The fact that she was now behind him—and blocking the only exit—made him somewhat nervous, but he stepped forward. There was someone inside the room: an old man, tall, with a severe countenance. He had a commanding presence and a glare that seemed to see right through Obi-Wan. His clothes were a practical black, with a two-tone brown cape draped over his shoulders. Despite the rather plain cut, the fabric was high quality, expensive stuff, the kind that Obi-Wan most often saw on members of the Senate or on nobles of various planets.

And yet, he was a Jedi. Obi-Wan could see the lightsaber at his hip. It seemed...odd. If this was Master Dooku, he’d left the Order when Obi-Wan was sixteen, and should have given up his lightsaber when he departed. Had he returned to the Jedi, then? That would make sense, since he was doing missions for them. No doubt Master Rael and Master Nu were overjoyed that he’d returned.

“I have brought Ben Jinn,” the Trandoshan said.

The Jedi gave a curt nod and dismissed her with his hand. Obi-Wan thought that was kind of cold, and awfully rude as well.

“Master Dooku?” Obi-Wan asked.

The Jedi looked at him, and the neutral frown on his face seemed to deepen. Obi-Wan had to stop himself from wincing. Less than a minute into this meeting, and his Grandmaster already didn’t like him.

No, he couldn’t jump to conclusions yet. Obi-Wan had ten years of missing memories. That look could be one of worry, not disappointment, especially if he’d _actually_ managed to meet Master Dooku at some point, and gotten to know him.

Qui-Gon and Master Rael had the utmost respect and trust for Master Dooku. Master Rael had told him several stories about his youth, and how Master Dooku seemed cold and intimidating until you finally started to understand him and his ways. Obi-Wan could see where people got the impression. Master Dooku’s shields were a smooth beskar wall that Obi-Wan could glean nothing from behind, no emotions, no impressions. His presence in the Force was pure blank calm, like a deep lake on a still day. His face was even more difficult to decipher than Qui-Gon’s talking-to-annoying-senators face. Cold and intimidating seemed to be an awfully generous description; he made Obi-Wan downright nervous.

That wasn’t fair though, it wasn’t like Master Dooku had done anything to deserve Obi-Wan’s fear. Qui-Gon had always had the highest confidence in Master Dooku, and Obi-Wan would do the same. Obi-Wan just had to put in the effort to figure his Grandmaster out. He had a decade of experience with Qui-Gon, it shouldn’t be that difficult.

“Hello, Grandmaster,” Obi-Wan said with a bow, trying to prompt conversation as Master Dooku simply continued to stare at him.

“Obi-Wan Kenobi,” Master Dooku said slowly, tone indecipherable. Then, he seemed to snap out of...whatever it was, because he seemed to straighten up a bit as he said, “The air in this building is filtered. You may take off your helmet and mask.”

Obi-Wan did so. “You seem surprised to see me,” he said, hugging the helmet to his chest.

“I was expecting Rael,” Master Dooku said.

“Is he supposed to be here as well?” Obi-Wan asked, perking up. Master Rael was weird, for a Jedi, but he was fun to be around and he just seemed to _get_ Obi-Wan in ways that Qui-Gon never did.

And every time he saw him, Master Rael taught him a new way to cheat at sabacc. He’d never forget the absolutely _scandalized_ look on Qui-Gon’s face when he’d recognized a trick that Obi-Wan had used that he’d learned from Master Rael.

“He is not,” Master Dooku said dryly. “He just seems the most likely person to use _Ben Jinn_ as an alias.”

Obi-Wan did wince at that.

Master Dooku kindly ignored it, and gestured for Obi-Wan to sit down at the desk. He did so, setting his helmet and mask on the floor next to him. Master Dooku sat across from him, giving him a piercing stare that seemed to know everything about him, and find him wanting.

“Why are you here, Obi-Wan?” Dooku asked. Obi-Wan couldn’t tell if he was concerned or disappointed. Qui-Gon used this _exact_ tone with him whenever he got into trouble, especially when it was trouble that Qui-Gon had _specifically_ told him not to get into.

Obi-Wan had the permission of the Council this time, though, so he refused to feel guilty about something he was _supposed_ to do.

“Master Yoda sent me,” he said. 

That caught the old master’s attention. Master Dooku gave him a positively inscrutable look as he continued,

“I need your help.”


	4. The Conversation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A padawan asks his grandmaster for help. The request goes over well, from a certain point of view.

A  _ child _ .

They had sent a  _ child _ to deal with Dooku.

Dooku was almost certain this was some sort of test, or a trap, set by his old Master. Either that, or the Stone did not work the way Darth Chronius had theorized that it would—it made young the body, but not the mind. In that case, he was  _ still _ going up against The Negotiator in all his glory, and not a nervous teenager who seemed scared to death of his grandmaster.

And yet...the boy’s presence in the Force was nothing like what he’d come to expect from his favorite grandpadawan. His shields weren’t a smooth wall of diplomacy, they were a prickly cactus ball of defensiveness. And they weren’t closed, either. Raised, certainly, as all Jedi children were taught to do, mostly to avoid overwhelming other Force-sensitives in their presence. Ready to snap shut, sure, and they were tightened every time Dooku so much as  _ looked _ at the boy. But every time Obi-Wan realized he was doing that, he loosened them again, as though he were explicitly trying to defy his instinct. Somehow, this Obi-Wan Kenobi, this child who couldn’t be older than seventeen,  _ trusted _ Dooku.

It made him suspicious.

“Hello, Grandmaster,” Obi-Wan said with a bow. He was incredibly nervous, but not  _ fearful _ .

“Obi-Wan Kenobi,” Dooku said slowly, still trying to figure out  _ why _ the Council had sent an amnesiac child to him instead of Rael. He decided it didn’t matter at this precise moment. If Yoda was going to gift-wrap him a new Sith apprentice, who was he to turn it down? “The air in this building is filtered. You may take off your helmet and mask.”

Obi-Wan did so, and Dooku marveled at how  _ easily _ Obi-Wan trusted him. “You seem surprised to see me,” Obi-Wan said.

“I was expecting Rael,” Dooku said.

“Is he supposed to be here as well?” Obi-Wan asked, perking up. So he knew Rael; that would put him at...somewhere between seventeen and nineteen? He knew that Rael had only left Pijal because of Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan, and it had been shortly after he’d left the Order, but it had been a few decades, and Dooku couldn’t remember off the top of his head exactly what year that was.

“He is not,” Dooku said dryly. “He just seems the most likely person to use  _ Ben Jinn _ as an alias.”

Obi-Wan did wince at that. Good. Dooku did not tolerate  _ foolishness _ .

Dooku ignored the wince, and gestured for Obi-Wan to sit down at the desk. He did so, setting his helmet and mask on the floor next to him. Dooku sat across from him, still trying to figure out what Yoda was planning, whether the boy was bait or if Dooku was the test.

“Why are you here, Obi-Wan?” Dooku asked, using the tone that had always gotten Qui-Gon to be honest about why he’d been out after curfew. 

Obi-Wan looked like he was physically holding himself back from cowering—so different from Qui-Gon, who had never shied from his decisions, no matter how much he might have regretted them, or Rael, who always puffed up proudly after getting caught doing something against the rules. “Master Yoda sent me,” he said. “I need your help.”

...

_ What _ ?

This was definitely some sort of trap. It had to be.

“Oh?” Dooku asked calmly. If it was a trap, he was going to let Obi-Wan let slip as much information as possible before deciding whether or not to “fall for it.”

“I have apparently recently come into contact with a Sith artifact, and according to my fellow Jedi, I have lost the last ten years of my life,” Obi-Wan said, voice stilted and formal with nerves. It was an unfortunate habit that many young padawans picked up when their masters spent too much time around senators and rulers. Obi-Wan should be beyond that at his age. “Master Yoda told me that the artifact was now in your possession, and advised me to come see you. I know that we’ve never had a chance to meet during the first twenty-five years of my life, but I hope we’ve been able to form a relationship over the last ten, and I know that Master Jinn always spoke very highly of you, and he said that you were one of the most well-versed Jedi in Sith artifacts and Jedi prophecies. So I’m asking for your help, Master Dooku.”

Dooku skimmed Obi-Wan’s emotions, only to find that he was being completely genuine. If this  _ was _ a trap, Obi-Wan didn’t know about it.

If this  _ wasn’t _ a trap, then the Jedi were even more idiotic than Dooku had previously thought.

“What do you know about the artifact already?” Dooku asked.

Obi-Wan visibly relaxed at the question, seeing that Dooku wasn’t going to completely dismiss him, which was quite foolish of him. It wasn’t as if Dooku had said  _ yes _ . 

Dooku was baffled at the way his grandpadawan acted. He was nothing like the man Dooku had come to know, and from the way Qui-Gon had always gushed about his padawan, he wouldn’t have expected this behavior at any point.

“Well, nothing, really,” Obi-Wan said, and the formality of his words relaxed as well. “I don’t remember anything about it, and according to Padawan Tano, Anakin and I were the only ones there when it affected us, so we don’t have any information about how it works or what it looks like or anything like that, only that it somehow made us younger. Or, well, it could be time travel, I suppose.”

“Time travel?” Dooku asked, eyebrow raised.

“Does that sound any  _ more _ ridiculous than a magical Sith object that turns Jedi back into padawans?”

Ah. Now this? This was a character flaw that Dooku remembered hearing about from his second padawan. Obi-Wan the skeptic, who didn’t believe in Jedi prophecies, or in Sith magicks, or in the benefits of learning dozens of dead languages. Considering how many times Qui-Gon had had to be metaphorically or physically dragged away from such things when  _ he _ was a padawan, Dooku could hardly believe that these two had ever managed to get along, much less form such an effective team. Qui-Gon had always struggled to let people disagree with him. A character trait he’d already had when Dooku had taken him on, but one—if Dooku was being truthful—one that had gotten much worse under his tutelage.

“Hm,” Dooku said, and Obi-Wan shrunk into himself again, clearly second-guessing himself now. Dooku let the seconds stretch uncomfortably, and then, just before Obi-Wan could decide to say something else, he said, “I don’t have the artifact with me.”

“No?” Obi-Wan asked disbelievingly.

“No,” Dooku confirmed. “I thought it would be unwise to bring a priceless artifact to a place such as this.”

He paused for effect. Over his many years of negotiating with people, he had learned the importance of following the proper beats of a conversation.

“However…” he said slowly, “It would hardly be an inconvenience to bring  _ you _ to the artifact.”

“Really?” Obi-Wan asked, with  _ far  _ too much hope and belief in his eyes for someone who barely knew Dooku.

Dooku gave a nod. “I can take you in my ship. I’m quite adept at getting the Separatist forces to leave me to my business, and  _ my _ Idents won’t be questioned.”

Obi-Wan frowned a bit at that, and after a hesitation, he asked, “Grandmaster, why  _ do _ the Separatists trust you? Aren’t you a Jedi?”

If Obi-Wan thought he was a Jedi, then perhaps the boy was younger than he thought. Then again, Obi-Wan had said he was only missing ten years. The boy ought to be a Knight if that were the case.

The pieces weren’t adding up. It made Dooku even more suspicious.

“Serreno is a Separatist planet,” Dooku said, not really answering either question. “My citizenship grants me certain privileges that others do not have.”

Obi-Wan nodded, accepting that. Foolish of him.

“I left Cod—uh, Jaden—”

“Commander Cody?” Dooku asked, and Obi-Wan froze. Gently, Dooku said, “You don’t need to keep pretenses up around me, Obi-Wan.”

Obi-Wan took a breath, and then nodded. “Cody’s still on the ship,” he said.

“I will have someone bring him to meet us on my ship, then,” Dooku said. “And I’ll take care of the arrangements for your ship to be maintained and protected here while we are gone.”

“Where  _ are _ we going?” Obi-Wan asked.

Dooku named the planet. Obi-Wan frowned a moment, no doubt trying to remember what quadrant it was in, then nodded. “Not too far from here,” he muttered, practically to himself.

“If you will excuse me for a moment, I will make the necessary arrangements, and then we can be on our way,” Dooku said. Obi-Wan gave a slight bow from his seat, and Dooku left.

Obi-Wan took a deep breath as the door shut behind Master Dooku, running his padawan braid through his fingers as he willed his nerves to calm. His grandmaster didn’t really seem to like him much, and the whole conversation felt like a test that Obi-Wan wasn’t prepared for, but...if it was a test, Obi-Wan thought he had passed. His grandmaster had agreed to help, and he was so much  _ better  _ at this than Obi-Wan was. Master Dooku knew what was going on, he had  _ decades _ of experience in warfare and espionage, and he knew far more about Sith artifacts than Obi-Wan could possibly hope to find out with the limited time he’d been using for research. He was a severe old man, but he hadn’t turned Obi-Wan and Cody away, even when it was pretty obvious that Obi-Wan was imposing quite a lot on him.

As Obi-Wan waited, he looked around at the room he was in. It was obviously somebody’s office, very organized, with locks on every cabinet and desk drawer. On a table against a wall there was a holomap glowing softly, and as Obi-Wan looked, he realized that the top level of it was the spaceport that they’d landed in.

Curious, Obi-Wan got up and moved towards it. The top level showed the twelve landing zones of the spaceport, as well as the administration building in the center. From what Obi-Wan had seen when he’d landed the ship, Cody would be in Zone 3. Obi-Wan traced the path the guard had led him through (with his eyes, not his finger; it might be a holomap, but Obi-Wan had listened to enough of his master’s lectures about touching shit that he  _ really _ didn’t want a repeat experience with his grandmaster, especially since his grandmaster didn’t even like him) and decided that he must be very nearly at the heart of the building. There was an open circular area in the center that was likely the main gathering area for visitors to the port, and six hallways that branched off from it, each of which later branched off to two landing zones.

He made note of it, memorizing it quickly so that he wouldn’t embarrass himself in front of his grandmaster by getting lost. But the surface level wasn’t the interesting part of the map.

There were tunnels under each of the landing zones. At first, Obi-Wan thought they might be maintenance tunnels, but the entrances seemed weirdly out of the way for maintenance tunnels. They, too, all met in a circular area in the middle, and then in the center of that was an elevator that went down probably thirty meters or so. From there, one main tunnel spiderwebbed out into many that twisted and turned in more natural directions. It took a moment for Obi-Wan to recognize what he was seeing, and then it hit him.

There was a mine below the spaceport.

He was pretty sure that was against the Mining Guild Codes. It had been a while since he’d taken History of Guilds, but if he remembered correctly, there was something about an explosion of a spacecraft that ended up collapsing a mineshaft and killing something like a hundred miners. Or maybe it was the other way around, that there was an explosion in the mineshaft that had ended up also sinking the spaceport. Either way, a lot of people had died.

Master Tyvokka had looked over all of them that day, more serious than Obi-Wan had ever seen him before the Stark-Hyperspace War, and said, “ _ Remember, Initiates, all Guild Codes are written in blood _ .”

And wouldn’t you know it, that was something Obi-Wan had never forgotten.

“Obi-Wan!”

Obi-Wan nearly jumped out of his skin as he whirled around. Master Dooku was waiting at the door, frowning.

“Come along,” he said. “Your commander should already be onboard, and everything else is taken care of. Time to go, Padawan.”

“Yes, Master Dooku,” Obi-Wan said, hurrying to follow his grandmaster. He was so intent on catching up that he didn’t even notice that he’d forgotten his helmet and mask by the chair.

“What do you know about the time between the time you remember and the present?” Dooku asked as they walked.

“Not a lot,” Obi-Wan said. “The last thing I remember is the mission to Naboo. We hadn’t finished it yet—we got sidetracked on Tatooine, we had to fix our ship and we picked up a Force-sensitive child named Anakin. I’ve heard we’re in a civil war with the Sith? And I’m supposed to be a General? But...it doesn’t exactly seem to be going well. And we’re allied with the Mandalorians—or, well, at least a bunch of Mandalorian clones? I don’t really understand how that happened, but they’re a lot more polite than most of the Mandalorians I know. Um...I’m a grandmaster, apparently, and Anakin was my padawan, and Padawan Tano is my grandpadawan, but I don’t think we get along very well. And...and I know Master Jinn passed into the Force.”

It seemed to hurt Master Dooku just as much to hear that as it did for Obi-Wan to say it. 

“Were you told what happened?” Master Dooku asked.

Obi-Wan shook his head.

Master Dooku took a deep breath. “He was killed on Naboo,” he said.

Obi-Wan froze.  _ No _ . No, that wasn’t possible. The very mission he’d been on when he was pulled into this hellish future? It couldn’t—that couldn’t be right.

“How?” Obi-Wan managed to croak out.

“The two of you were purposefully misinformed by the Senate,” Master Dooku said, icy bitterness in his voice. “The Trade Federation was working with the Sith. Once you returned to Naboo from Coruscant, a Sith apprentice lured the two of you and managed to separate you from your master. He murdered Qui-Gon, and then tried to kill you, and you managed to kill him in self-defense.”

Obi-Wan was reeling. It seemed insane, absolutely insane. A  _ Sith? _ On  _ Naboo? _ Even with everything that had gone wrong, surely it wasn’t so ridiculous as  _ that. _ And the idea that  _ he _ might have killed a  _ Sith? _ Him? Obi-Wan Kenobi?

And then his training kicked in, and he realized something. “Wait,” he said, “ _ Purposefully misinformed? _ ”

Master Dooku sighed, and put a gentle hand on Obi-Wan’s cheek, pointing his chin up to look Dooku in the eye. “Yes,” he said, softly, voice full of grief. “Because it turns out that it’s not the Sith on the Separatist side that you need to worry about, Obi-Wan. There’s a Sith controlling the Senate, and he intends to destroy  _ everything _ .”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would apologize for ending two chapters in a row with a cliffhanger but I heard that apologies don't count if you're not actually sorry.


	5. The Catalyst

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ahsoka and Anakin have a conversation, and Cody finally gets to leave the ship.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick warning for canon-typical levels of violence near the end of the chapter.

After dinner, Ahsoka took Anakin back to their shared quarters. She flopped facedown on the couch with a groan, and didn’t move.

Anakin, on the other hand, quietly moved to put the sketchbook back where it had been this morning, setting the colored styli on top of it, and then waited against a wall, not sure if he was supposed to go to his room or if Ahsoka wanted him to stay with her. The waiting wasn’t so bad, now that he had a coat keeping him warm. He wondered if Ahsoka would let him borrow it again tomorrow.

“Ugh,” Ahsoka groaned into the pillow, after several moments of playing dead to the world. “I didn’t realize being a general was so much  _ work _ . You and Obi-Wan always make it look so  _ easy _ .”

Anakin didn’t say anything. Ahsoka was talking about the older him, and he’d learned over the course of the day that she didn’t actually expect a reply when she talked about the older him.

The silence stretched out for a few moments.

Ahsoka sighed and pushed herself up to look at him. “You know, I never would have guessed you were a quiet initiate,” she said. 

Anakin almost didn’t respond to that, sensing that it was another idle comment, but...well, he was supposed to be learning how to be a Jedi, and a comment like that made him worry he was already doing it wrong.

“Am I...not supposed to be?” he asked. 

Ahsoka shrugged. “The Skyguy I know is a real chatterbox. Not the best at diplomacy, but strikes up conversations and makes friends with everyone.”

“Sorry,” Anakin said, not sure if he was apologizing for being quiet or for older him being loud, but feeling that she was expecting an apology nonetheless.

“You don’t have to apologize for it,” Ahsoka said, and Anakin winced as he realized he’d guessed wrong  _ again. _ “I just never thought the Hero Without Fear was a shy little kid once. I think I would have been less intimidated when I first met you if I had.”

Anakin hesitated for a moment, stuck on yet  _ another _ stupid word in Basic that he didn’t know, and then, since he  _ did _ trust Ahsoka, somehow, he asked, “Intimidated?”

“You and Obi-Wan are legends, Skyguy,” Ahsoka said. “Who  _ wouldn’t _ be nervous about becoming the padawan of the coolest Jedi in the Temple?”

“But I thought you said I was your teacher, not Obi-Wan?” Anakin asked, confused.

Ahsoka laughed, and Anakin bristled before realizing that she wasn’t mocking him.

“I  _ am _ your padawan,” Ahsoka said. “Obi-Wan’s pretty cool, but I think you’re way cooler.”

“Really?” Anakin asked, a lopsided, almost-smile working its way onto his face. 

“Yeah! You’re the one who teaches me how to hotwire ships, and do cool Force tricks, and you’ll race me to the ground after jumping out a lartie. Obi-Wan’s cool too, but...well, he’s kind of a  _ nerd _ . He’s more likely to give an informal lesson on past participle conjugation in Ryl or something like that.”

Anakin grinned, not quite sure what “past participle conjugation” was but knowing that Ahsoka was making a joke. 

But then, after a moment’s hesitation, he frowned and looked at his sleeves as he fiddled with the edges of them. “I thought you didn’t like me,” he admitted.

“Really?” Ahsoka asked, and Anakin wasn’t the best at figuring out emotions but even  _ he  _ could see how baffled she was. “I thought  _ you  _ didn’t like  _ me! _ You’ve done pretty much nothing but push me away or run off since you got out of the medbay.”

Anakin cringed. “Sorry.”

“I just—” Ahsoka started, and then sighed. 

Anakin knew he was supposed to say something, but he had no  _ idea _ how to fix this. He wished he was the older him.  _ That _ Anakin would know how to help, he was sure. Ahsoka said he was a cool Jedi with lots of friends,  _ surely _ he would know what to do.

“I know I’m not Obi-Wan, and I can’t be Obi-Wan either, but…” Ahsoka said, slowly, unsure. “...I still want to be friends with you, if you’re willing.”

Anakin nodded.  _ Friends _ . He wanted to be friends with Ahsoka.

“I...yes,” he said. “I think...that would be  _ wizard _ .”

Ahsoka gave a smile that was somehow sad and happy at the same time, and it reminded him of the way his mom looked when she’d told him goodbye. Anakin didn’t know what it meant, but he hoped it wasn’t bad.

Ahsoka held out a hand, and Anakin shook it. “Thanks, Skyguy,” she said softly.

Anakin didn’t know what she was thanking him for, but he nodded anyway.

“I think there’s something wrong with General Skywalker.”

Kix raised an eyebrow as he drank some definitely-not-alcohol from the canteen he’d stolen from Jesse. “You mean  _ aside _ from the obvious?”

Rex gave him a withering look, and Kix mockingly toasted in his general direction. Jesse took the opportunity to swipe his canteen back.

“I’m serious, Kix,” Rex said. “He flinches every time someone talks to him. And outside of a very small subset, he’s frightened of us. More specifically, he seems scared of being out of sight of another Jedi unless he’s with Captain Gregor, Dimple, or you. That’s not  _ normal behavior  _ for a Jedi cadet.”

“Ah,” Kix said.

“I mean, it’s a scary situation,” Hardcase said, not looking up from the blaster he was trying to clean mostly one-handed. “And he’s littler than most Jedi cadets, by a couple cycles at  _ least _ .”

“Hey wait,” Jesse said, popping his head over the side of his bunk to look at Kix. “I know that ‘ah.’ You know something, don’t you?”

Everyone suddenly had their eyes on Kix, who frowned. “Some things were explained to me in medical confidence,” he said. “I can’t discuss it further than that.”

“In  _ medical confidence? _ ” Hardcase asked. “Does that mean he’s got some sort of  _ sickness  _ that makes him a scaredy-tooka?”

There was a beat of silence, and then Hardcase realized something.

“No wait, that’s stupid, it’s some kind of injury trauma, isn’t it?” he said, waving his cast slightly.

“I  _ can’t discuss it further _ , Hardcase,” Kix said pointedly.

“Right, sorry.”

The four of them returned to silence for a few minutes. Jesse took another swig from his canteen, thinking. It was wild to consider that the little General could have battle trauma at this point. He was only a second-cycle cadet, and a civilian at that! The kid wasn’t even a Jedi at this point, Kenobi had told the Jedi Council that he’d just been picked up for Initiate testing, whatever that was.

Then again, the General  _ was _ from Tatooine. Maybe he’d gotten mixed up with the Hutts, or something. Jesse’d heard that Jabba the Hutt had tried to kill Ahsoka after she’d rescued his son, and if he was willing to kill her, fresh out of the Temple, still only a third-cycle, after she’d saved his  _ son _ , what was so different about trying to kill a little second-cycle?

Well, whatever it was, Jesse resolved, they’d make sure it didn’t happen to him again.

“Is there anything you can tell us to help him?” Jesse asked. “Or avoid making things worse, at least?”

Kix sighed, thinking for a moment.

Finally, he said, “You can’t push him. He’s not like one of our cadets. We have to let him trust us at his own pace, or he’s not going to trust us at all.”

That was...vague, but Jesse would keep it in mind.

They stayed quiet for several more moments, lost in their own thoughts.

Eventually, Hardcase switched the subject. “Bets on how General Kenobi’s mission is going?”

“I’m sure it’s going fine,” Rex said. “Cody’s there, he’ll keep Kenobi out of trouble.”

“Since  _ when? _ ” Jesse asked. “I’ll bet all my desserts for the next month that everything went to shit before they even landed.”

“Oh, give the commander some credit,” Kix said, a grin in his voice. “I bet they made it all the way off the ship before someone got kidnapped or shot at.”

Rex gave an irritated sigh. “ _ I’ll _ put my faith in Cody,” he said. “Dessert on nobody gets any major injuries.”

“Love that you’re not willing to bet that no one gets  _ any _ injuries,” Jesse teased.

“I have realistic expectations,” Rex said stiffly. “Have you  _ met _ General Kenobi?”

Hardcase and Jesse both cackled at that.

“What about you, Hardcase?” Jesse asked. “What’s your bet?”

“Hmm,” Hardcase said, thinking for a moment. “I bet one of them dramatically rescues the other.”

Jesse snorted. “Cody’ll probably get ahold of the General’s lightsaber and decapitate a slew of clankers after Kenobi does something reckless and gets in trouble for it.”

“At this point I think it’s Cody’s lightsaber,” Hardcase said with a grin. “He just lets the General use it sometimes to keep up appearances.”

“He lets the General use it just often enough that he can still go ‘ _ Ahhhnakin, your lightsaber is your liiiiife _ ,’” Jesse joked.

The four of them all cracked up at that. There was a running tally between the 501st and the 212th for which of their Jedi lost their lightsaber the most, and whether Anakin or Obi-Wan was in the lead depended on the day. Ahsoka was on the tally board too, but she’d managed to argue her way into letting each time she dropped a lightsaber be counted only as a half, because not only was she  _ just a padawan _ , but since she had  _ two _ lightsabers, it wasn’t as bad for her to lose one, since she still had another weapon.

General Kenobi, upon hearing Rex and Cody talking about it, had apparently been delighted at her argumentative skill and assured Cody that he saw no flaw in her argument, and immediately after told Cody and Rex that they were  _ never _ allowed to tell Anakin or Ahsoka that he’d said that.

And they hadn’t. Rex told Kix, and Kix told Jesse, and Jesse told Hardcase, and Hardcase told Ahsoka, and Ahsoka lorded it over Anakin during an argument that they’d had over something stupid about repairs to the Twilight, which R2 overheard and squawked about to Fixit while they were having their weekly droid bitch session (which they only have because C-3P0 wasn’t there for R2 to hang out with and the mousedroids don’t make very good conversationalists, of course), and Kix and Hardcase had both overheard that, which meant that Jesse had gotten two wildly conflicting versions of the same droid argument about two wildly conflicting versions of the Jedi’s argument.

In the end, Jesse had won several small bets about various things concerning Torrent’s Jedi and their Master, and he wouldn’t have to do sanitation duty for a month no matter  _ what _ he did.

All in a day’s work, as a Scout.

Now, though, he was gearing up to use those skills to figure out what was up with the little General. Kix knew something of what was going on, and it concerned the hell out of him, so it couldn’t be good. Jesse wasn’t a shitty enough person to try and get Kix to break medical confidence, though. He needed to work other angles, ask other people what they’d noticed, and puzzle it all together.

He’d start with the Torrent mechanics. Anakin seemed to like them well enough. And if they didn’t know, he knew that one of the 212th’s scouts had been babysitting Anakin for the last several days.

He wouldn’t involve Ahsoka, she had too much on her plate right now.

But he’d figure it out.

Cody had closed the ship up after Obi-Wan had left. He returned to the bridge, refusing to pace nervously. Obi-Wan would be  _ fine. _

The minutes ticked by agonizingly slowly. He wondered if Obi-Wan was  _ really  _ filling out paperwork, or if he’d just been captured. If it was the latter, Cody should be seeing something dramatic any moment now. An explosion, perhaps, or the doors of the spaceport building flung off their hinges by the Force.

Or at least,  _ his _ Obi-Wan would do that. He had no idea if this younger Obi-Wan would do the same.

Finally, there was a pounding at the gangplank. Cody flipped the ship’s external comms on, and said, “What do you want?”

“You are to come out and rejoin your  _ captain _ .” Apparently, the Trandoshan had returned. “He is waiting for you inside.”

Cody didn’t like this. It seemed suspicious that Obi-Wan hadn’t returned to the ship.

Still, Cody made his way to the gangplank. It was possible Sevarcos had a weird spaceport security system; it wouldn’t be the first time they’d had to deal with something like that. It was also possible that Obi-Wan was in danger, and in that case, Cody would do anything he had to in order to keep his General safe. It wouldn’t be the first time they’d encountered pirates at a spaceport, either. Going along, for now, would probably be safer for both of them. He wouldn’t risk Obi-Wan getting hurt or killed for any perceived disobedience by Cody.

Once he’d descended from the ship and locked it up, the Trandoshan gave him an annoyed, impatient look, and said, “He’s this way, come on.”

She turned and started walking toward the building. Cody followed warily. The wariness increased when the other guards who had been waiting around the ship fell into step behind him. All of them had stun batons and Sevari flashpistols, and with them surrounding him, it was very difficult not to think this was a trap.

Still, he thought he’d at least be led through the door before they threw a bag over his head.

Instinctively, he lashed out. His elbow connected to something, and there was a pained cry. He swept a leg in the other direction and kicked at least one leg out from under someone.

Then, hot bolts of pain in his lower back and all across his chest. He dropped to the ground himself, struggling to breathe as his muscles seized up with electricity. This wouldn’t be a problem in his regular armor, he thought, but Nubian plates were metal, and metal had an unfortunate habit of conducting electricity.

Someone hit him again with the stun baton, and he cried out as pain lanced up his ribs. He might have blacked out—if he did, it was only for a moment. His head was swimming though, and his muscles were still not responding properly. Someone cuffed his arms behind his back, and tied the bag tight around his head, just loose enough that it wouldn’t cut off his breathing, but tight enough that he wouldn’t be able to slip it off.

Someone hauled him onto their shoulder. He tried to kick out at them, and got a warning tap to the back of the head.

“Count Dooku said to bring you in alive,” the Trandoshan said. “How conscious you are depends fully on how well you behave.”

_ Count Dooku? _ He’d already discovered them?

_ Kriff _ .

And Obi-Wan probably had no idea that he’d walked into a trap. Cody really hoped that he’d be able to talk his way out of getting killed by the Sith.  _ Paperwork _ . Cody should have  _ known _ it was a trap.

He considered fighting for a moment, but decided it would be better to remain conscious. Anything he heard or felt might be useful in determining where he was going, and how to get back if he escaped.

_ When _ he escaped.

“Good choice,” the Trandoshan said as he resigned himself to being carried like a sack of fornaxes.

They walked only a few meters before there was a  _ creeeeeak _ and the footsteps began to echo. The air was immediately cooler, and he could no longer feel the wind pulling at his clothes, though he could hear it. Some sort of tunnel, he’d guess.

The trip through the tunnel didn’t take too long, and then it was another  _ creeeeeak _ and back into the hot wind. A bit more walking led them to  _ clang clang clang _ , footsteps on metal. If he had to guess, probably a ship’s gangplank.

“Hey, what are you doing here?”

Cody stiffened as he heard the tinny voice.  _ Force kriff a sith _ .

“We’re delivering a prisoner for Count Dooku,” the Trandoshan said.

“Oh,” the tinnie said. “Well, the brig is that way!”

Movement again. Cody tried hard not to panic. If  _ he _ was supposed to be a prisoner, there were really two options, neither of them good. Either Dooku had captured Obi-Wan and found out that he didn’t know anything, and had decided to try and extract the necessary information from Cody, or he  _ hadn’t  _ captured Obi-Wan, and he was going to use Cody as bait.

If it was the latter, Cody hoped that Obi-Wan would do the sensible thing and leave him behind.

But knowing Obi-Wan, he probably wouldn’t.

Cody gritted his teeth and resolved to escape at the earliest possible opportunity.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Friday happens to be Christmas so I probably will not be able to post a chapter that day or, like, any time next week lmao. Unless something changes, the plan is to resume posting the Friday after that, which is January 1st! Happy holidays and stay safe!


	6. The Standoff

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Count Dooku was having a very good day. He had drawn Sevarcos deeper into the Separatist fold, his experiment had gone just as predicted, and, if he played his cards right, he was about to have a new Sith apprentice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for canon-typical violence in this chapter.

Had Master Dooku not caught him, Obi-Wan thought he might have made an embarrassing acquaintance with the floor. As it was, he leaned heavily against the wall, clutching his grandmaster’s forearms tightly, doing his best not to have a panic attack in the middle of a spaceport.

“A  _ Sith? _ In the  _ Senate? _ ” he hissed.

He looked desperately up at his grandmaster, hoping that it was just some sort of truly horrible joke, but no. Master Dooku looked deadly serious.

He focused on his breathing, forcing himself into the meditation count. Silently, he counted to seven, counted to four, counted to eight. Focusing on the numbers let him hang onto something other than his spiraling thoughts.

He felt a presence wrapping around him in the Force like a blanket, and he allowed it. As it weaved itself together at the edges of his senses, everything else around him dimmed to a whisper, and then silence; the background sense of the planet, the presences of other sentients in the spaceport, the greater Force that hadn’t felt right since Obi-Wan had first woken up in a ship full of strangers—everything faded away. All that remained was the calm lake of Master Dooku’s presence, and with the quiet all around him, like a meditation room in the Temple, Obi-Wan slowly managed to bring quiet to his own panicky thoughts.

“This isn’t a vision?” he croaked out, once he was capable of more than desperate, panicked gasps. He had asked this once before, to Padawan Tano, but considering how absolutely gartroshit insane this whole thing had become, it felt fair to ask again.

Master Dooku gave a short, bitter laugh. “I’m afraid not, Padawan,” he said.

“I thought the Sith were supposed to be on the Separatist side,” Obi-Wan said.

“It’s not nearly as straightforward as the Council would have you believe,” Master Dooku said. “There are Jedi who fight for the Separatists, and a Sith in the heart of the Republic.”

“Who’s on the Separatist side? You?”

“You may recall Master Sora Bulq,” Master Dooku said.

“The Weapons Master, yes,” Obi-Wan said.

“And I believe you are familiar with...hm...Quinlan Vos?”

Obi-Wan’s heart skipped a beat.  _ Quin _ was a Separatist? He couldn’t—there was no way—Quinlan  _ wouldn’t _ betray the Order. More importantly, he wouldn’t have left Obi-Wan  _ behind _ . They’d made a promise, once: if they ever had to make a choice, either both of them would leave or both of them would stay.

What the  _ kriff _ had happened in the last ten years?

“The war has been difficult for all of us,” Master Dooku said, not unkindly. “Take some time to meditate when you’re onboard the ship.”

Obi-Wan nodded, and let himself be pulled up. He felt as if his entire sense of balance had been upended, but he followed Master Dooku as he led him to the ship, leaning into the presence that Master Dooku still had Obi-Wan completely wrapped in. He hoped that Cody and Master Dooku would be willing to tolerate him asking questions about all that was going on. He dreaded finding out the answers to all the questions he had, but considering how everything had gone so far today, it seemed that he hadn’t been asking nearly enough of them.

This war suddenly seemed a whole lot worse than he’d thought.

Cody’s opportunity came sooner than he would have thought.

At some point, one of the kidnappers who weren’t carrying him brushed against one of his feet. He kicked backwards as hard and high as he could, and with a squawk, the person went down, causing someone else to yelp as well. 

The one holding him dropped him at the sudden movement. Cody kicked out again, and there was a  _ crack _ , and the one who’d been holding him went down with a howl of pain. 

That was two. Two more to go, he thought. 

He heard the crackle of a stun baton turning on. Whoever had it didn’t approach though. Instead, she muttered, “I don’t get paid enough for this shit,” and called out, “Droids! Get over here!”

_ Kriff. _

Risking getting hit with a stunner, Cody rolled onto his back, getting his cuffed hands under his thighs and then quickly pulling his legs through to get his hands in front of him. Already he could hear the  _ chuk-chuk _ of oncoming droids.

He yanked the ties of the bag on his head and scrambled to his feet in one movement. As soon as the knots were loose, he pulled the bag off and tossed it away. 

He blinked a few times, trying to adjust to the sudden brightness.

_ Assess. React. _

He was in a hallway full of red force-field doors. Two of his assailants were scooting across the floor towards the third, still standing, with the stun baton. The fourth lay still on the ground, clutching his knee and whimpering.

Droids came from both directions; two from behind the Sevari guards, three from behind him. Cody’s hands went for his right flashpistol, came up empty.  _ Kriff _ . Moving to the left holster produced the same result. He was weaponless.

And the droids had arrived.

“Quick!” Cody said, pointing at the guard with the baton. “The prisoner’s escaping!”

The droids raised their blasters. “Put down your weapon, prisoner!” one of them said.

“What?” the guard said, looking wildly between the droids. “I’m not the prisoner,  _ he _ is! He’s trying to confuse you!”

“Yeah, that’s what they  _ all _ say,” another droid said dryly.

“He has  _ handcuffs _ on,  _ he’s _ the prisoner!”

“She attacked me with my own handcuffs,” Cody said, “and now she’s trying to frame herself as innocent!” 

The tinnies were confused.  _ Good _ . They tittered for a moment, trying to decide what to do.

“Put the weapon down or we  _ will _ shoot!”

“Maybe we should imprison all of them and let Count Dooku sort it out?”

“We have to prioritize the ones with weapons! What if they blast us?”

“Stay put while we neutralize the prisoners with weapons!” one of the droids finally snapped at Cody.

The three droids marched past Cody as the guards tried to argue their way out of this. Cody turned and walked quickly to the corner, then sprinted.

“Hey! We said stay put!” one of the droids called after him.

Cody ran faster.

He turned a corner, and there were two more droids. They didn’t even have time to tell him to stop. He tackled one of them, ripping its head off, then turned and leaped up at the other one, slamming his helmet into its head as he grabbed its blaster. The helmet made a worrisome cracking sound, and he winced as he was reminded that it was a shitty pilot’s helmet, not the solid plastoid bucket of his armor.

He yanked the blaster from the droid’s claws, and shot it in the chest. Then, well-aware that the noise of blasterfire would draw more droids to the area, he took off again.

He had to get off this ship, and he had to find Obi-Wan.

Count Dooku was extremely pleased with how this day was turning out. He had drawn Sevarcos even deeper into the Separatist fold. His experiment had turned out to work exactly as Darth Chronius’s writings had predicted. And, if he played his cards right, he was about to have a new Sith apprentice, one who wouldn’t be nearly so disappointing as Ventress often was.

Dooku had heard of the friendship of Vos and Obi-Wan several times from his padawan, and the panic and  _ betrayal _ he’d felt from Obi-Wan when he’d told him of Vos’s defection confirmed that it was a strong friendship, one that could be  _ used _ . Dooku was already making plans for how he could use such a friendship to keep both of them following his orders. And between Vos and the clone commander, it would be so very  _ easy _ to keep Obi-Wan in line until he was loyal to Dooku of his own volition. 

Although, to be perfectly honest, Dooku doubted that he would even need to use Obi-Wan’s friends against him. The boy already trusted him far too much, and he was  _ desperate  _ for someone else to take charge of things. It might be easier than anticipated to bring him to the enlightenment that Dooku had already found.

Dooku slipped a filtration mask onto his face as they exited the spaceport building to Zone 11. There was a slight hesitation in the footsteps behind him, but they continued almost immediately, so Dooku ignored whatever had caused Obi-Wan to pause. Like most padawans, one only had to worry if the footsteps actually  _ stopped _ .

With Komari, not hearing her footsteps meant that she was about to get into trouble. With Qui-Gon, it had meant that he’d wandered off to look at something interesting. With Rael, it could go either way. Idly, Dooku wondered which it would be for Obi-Wan.

Probably trouble, if even half the things that Qui-Gon had told him were accurate, and not wildly exaggerated.

As they entered Dooku’s ship, he sensed Obi-Wan start to worry, and immediately pressed a soothing wave of comfort over him. Obi-Wan accepted it almost  _ too _ eagerly, and Dooku had to wonder if this was  _ truly _ the Obi-Wan his padawan had praised and complained about so often. Qui-Gon had never mentioned how much anxiety the boy had brimming just underneath the surface. Indeed, Qui-Gon had always said that Obi-Wan was  _ enigmatic _ and  _ difficult-to-understand _ . Dooku found this young Obi-Wan pathetically easy-to-read, and he wondered at that; had Qui-Gon simply never tried to understand his padawan, or did Obi-Wan trust his grandmaster in a way that he didn’t trust his own master?

It was a question to be answered later, but he  _ would _ discover the answer. He had a feeling that knowing it would be the key to securing Obi-Wan’s loyalty.

“Grandmaster, isn’t Cody supposed to meet us here?” Obi-Wan asked.

Dooku thickened the Force blanket he’d wrapped around Obi-Wan, making sure that he wouldn’t be able to sense anything beyond it, and said, “He is no doubt settling into one of the guest quarters. I’m sure you’ll find him around here soon enough.”

At that very moment, the stupid clone commander burst out from one of the hallways, skidding as he spotted the exit, and then Obi-Wan and Dooku.

“General!  _ Run _ !”

The response was automatic, and Dooku had to snatch at Obi-Wan’s wrist to keep him from following the order.

“Master?” Obi-Wan asked. There was confusion struggling its way through the Force blanket Dooku had wrapped around Obi-Wan. Automatically, Dooku added another small layer of  _ calm-trust-safe _ to the blanket, building it up as he’d done so often for Rael when he was young.

Cody pointed his blaster at Dooku and snapped, “Get away from him,  _ Dooku _ .”

Cody, Dooku decided, had just replaced Skywalker’s clone commander as his  _ least  _ favorite clone.

“ _ Cody! _ ” Obi-Wan squawked. “This is my  _ grandmaster! _ ”

“And a  _ Sith! _ ” Cody said. “Get  _ away _ from him.”

Dooku tightened his grip on Obi-Wan’s wrist, thinking fast. All of this could go wrong very quickly if he didn’t find a way to turn it to his advantage.

“Don’t be ridiculous!” Obi-Wan said. “Master Dooku’s not a—a  _ Sith _ .”

“Sir, are you  _ mind tricked? _ ”

“Are  _ you? _ ”

Cody shook his head. “We can talk about this  _ later _ , sir, just  _ get away from him _ .”

Dooku had had enough of this. Without moving, so as not to give away the game, he froze the clone commander in a Force hold. Cody resisted, but a mere clone was no match for the power of the Dark side. The only thing his struggling would do was tire him out faster, and thus make him easier to manipulate.

With a minute tug of the Force, Cody’s blaster moved to point at Obi-Wan.

The boy’s breathing hitched. Very slowly, he raised his hands.

“Cody…” Obi-Wan pleaded, trying to sound calm.

“Sir!” he gritted out, fighting to regain control of the blaster.

Internally, Dooku smiled.

“Don’t do something you’re going to regret, Commander,” Dooku said, in a tone that he knew Obi-Wan would interpret as wary, and the clone would interpret as mocking.

“General,  _ run _ ,” Cody said desperately.

A moment ticked by. Two. Cody struggled with the blaster, terror and determination bleeding from him in equal measure. Dooku knew that if Cody kept struggling, the finger that was on the trigger was going to squeeze out of reflex.

Dooku had yet to decide if he would stop such a reflex, or merely make sure the blast didn’t hit anything  _ vital _ . It could be quite useful to foster enmity between Obi-Wan and his dear clone commander.

“Cody,  _ please _ put down the blaster.”

“I  _ can’t, _ sir.”

“We can  _ talk _ about this!”

“ _ Run, _ General!”

If these two idiots were going to keep being distracting, however, he might not have a choice in the matter.

“Obi-Wan, I fear he intends to kill you,” Dooku muttered. “Perhaps try  _ not _ to antagonize him.”

“Shut  _ up _ , Sith!”

Obi-Wan took a slow, deep breath next to Dooku, and then another. Then, softly, purposefully, he said, “Everyone just  _ calm down _ for a moment.”

For a moment, Dooku actually felt himself relax, and he  _ almost _ loosened his grip on the Force hold. Then, he realized what was happening.

Hm. Even as a child, Obi-Wan was surprisingly good with mind tricks.

That could be useful.

Dooku glanced over at Obi-Wan, and could practically see his thoughts racing like ships in hyperlanes. Obi-Wan’s shields had snapped shut, and they were  _ incredibly strong _ for someone his age. He could see Obi-Wan trying to think fast, but he had no  _ idea _ what direction those thoughts were racing towards.

Suddenly, Dooku could understand where Qui-Gon might get the impression that Obi-Wan was enigmatic.

Finally, Obi-Wan spoke.

“I’m leaving with Cody,” he said, very slowly, very calmly. “I’ll meet up with you again to get the artifact.”

_ What? _

_ No. _ This wasn’t how this was supposed to go.

“Obi-Wan, consider your  _ safety _ ,” Dooku said, playing the part of a concerned master. “You’re considering going with a  _ madman  _ who’s currently pointing a  _ blaster  _ at you!”

“ _ You _ —” Cody started, but Dooku cut him off with the Force. He didn’t need the clone making arguments right now.

“I will go with Cody,” Obi-Wan said, very slowly, very calmly. “I will see what he has to say. And then I will meet you at the place we discussed.”

“You won’t be able to meet me if you’re  _ dead _ ,” Dooku pointed out, thinking quickly as he weighed his options.

“Cody won’t hurt me,” Obi-Wan said.

His voice was confident. His eyes, however…

His eyes betrayed his doubt.

“ _ Never _ , sir,” Cody assured.

There were several possibilities he could turn to at this moment, but Dooku knew that he must make a decision  _ now _ . He could simply kill Cody, but that ran the risk of turning Obi-Wan against him. He could Force Cody to shoot at Obi-Wan, perhaps get the boy to turn against Cody, but he wasn’t sure that Obi-Wan couldn’t tell that Dooku was using the Force on both of them. He could knock Cody out, but he’d already underestimated the clone once, and if he escaped the brig again while they were in space, there was no telling how much damage he could do.

Dooku frowned. If he risked the shot, would he be able to convince Obi-Wan that it had been Cody? Perhaps he could say that Cody had broken through his Force-hold to shoot Obi-Wan. The boy trusted him greatly. But did he trust Cody more?

Then, ever so quietly, there was a whisper in the Force.

_ For now _ , it seemed to say.  _ Let them go...for now. _

The Force rarely led him wrong. If it was speaking to him so clearly, well…

He made his choice.

Dooku sighed. “Stay safe, Obi-Wan,” he said quietly. “And should you need me—”

He pulled a tiny comm unit from his pocket. It was secured and encrypted and equipped with a tracker, and would connect directly to him. He’d intended to give it to the head of the Sevari Council, but something had stopped him. Now, he understood, and he pressed the comm into Obi-Wan’s hand.

Dooku shoved the blaster upwards as he released Cody from his Force hold. As predicted, Cody’s hand squeezed reflexively, and the blaster fired, scoring a burn into the ceiling above them.

Obi-Wan flinched.

Dooku gave him a concerned look as he stepped back, as though to ask if he  _ really _ wanted to do this, and Obi-Wan gave him a quick, reassuring smile. Cody came closer, skittishly, suspiciously. Once the clone was within arm’s length of Obi-Wan, he grabbed the boy and ran, not once letting his gaze off of Dooku.

Dooku let the Force blanket around Obi-Wan unravel as the two of them sprinted down the gangplank and out of his sight. It might be more useful, at this juncture, for all of Obi-Wan’s fears and doubts to return to him in  _ full force _ .

Then, since the Force no longer whispered to him, he commed the head of security of the spaceport. “There are two Republic spies attempting to escape this spaceport,” he said. “I suggest you  _ find them. _ And be sure to bring them in  _ alive _ .”

With that done, he stormed towards the brig, intending to figure out  _ who, exactly,  _ was responsible for letting the prisoner escape.

_ That was too easy _ , Cody thought, as he dragged Obi-Wan back into the hot wind.  _ There’s no way Dooku would just— _

Obi-Wan tackled him to the ground as a gunshot rang out. Cody didn’t even  _ see _ the threat, but Obi-Wan was dragging him back to his feet, coughing as he waved a hand and whipped the wind around even more, throwing dust into the air until Cody couldn’t see anything.

And then there was a  _ creak _ and they were going down. Cody heard two more gunshots as the grate of the tunnel slammed shut above them, and Obi-Wan dragged them further into the darkness.

“Sith, huh?” Obi-Wan hissed as they ran.

“Yes sir,” Cody said, wishing his pilot’s helmet had a HUD. There was no lighting in this tunnel aside from the entry grate, and it was quickly becoming impossible to see.

“And you didn’t think that might be  _ pertinent information? _ ” Obi-Wan asked. It was a kind of bitter anger, one that Cody had rarely seen, and had certainly never seen directed at him, or indeed, any of the troopers. It was an anger that Obi-Wan typically reserved for the Council, or for natborn officers who’d withheld information that got clones killed unnecessarily.

“He’s been a Sith since before the war,” Cody said, apologetically. “I thought you knew.”

“I didn’t.”

They ran in cold silence, Cody following blindly behind Obi-Wan.

Their footsteps suddenly echoed, as if they’d entered a larger area, and Obi-Wan paused. Cody slammed into him, and was surprised they didn’t both end up on the ground.

From every direction, Cody could hear distant footsteps, and shouting. There seemed to be lights, too, though he wasn’t sure if the lights were real or simply his mind reacting to total darkness.

Obi-Wan took off again, and then shoved him inside a small room. At first Cody thought it was a closet, but the floor jerked and they were going down, and Cody realized it was an elevator.

“Plan?” he asked.

“Working on it,” Obi-Wan said. “But the first step is hide.”

The elevator opened to a tunnel entrance. There was a very dim red light just outside the elevator, and no light beyond it.

Obi-Wan grabbed Cody’s hand, and they sprinted into the darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's a New Year everyone.
> 
> 2020 is defeated.


	7. The Escape

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cody and Obi-Wan need to get off this planet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warning for drugs (spice) in this entire chapter. One of the characters is high this entire chapter.
> 
> If you would like a drug-free summary of this chapter, click here.

Obi-Wan didn’t believe Cody. He _didn’t._ He _couldn’t._

But calling someone a Sith...that wasn’t a light accusation. Even for a non-Jedi.

And he _did_ trust Cody. Cody had saved his life in the last battle at least once, if not several times. Cody had helped him plan and lead the last battle. Force, Cody had been helping him with _everything_ over the last several days.

Cody had also fired a _kill shot_ just above his head.

But that thought felt...not quite right. And even though Obi-Wan had been _right there_ , it felt like he was _missing_ something. It felt like when Qui-Gon gave him an obvious direction and yet his brain couldn’t figure out what Qui-Gon _wanted_ . Obi-Wan needed to puzzle through this, ask questions, and figure out what the _hell_ was actually going on.

So he had decided to go with Cody. He wanted to see what Cody had to say.

He _also,_ admittedly, wanted to see what the _Council_ had to say.

And if he decided it was banthashit, well, he _did_ agree to meet up with Master Dooku again. He would have to either way, to get the artifact.

The artifact, and hopefully instructions on how to use it. And if he was _really_ lucky, maybe he’d have the opportunity to ask Master Dooku some questions about _his_ side of the story. He’d said there were Jedi who fought for the Separatists. Who was even to say that he was a Sith, and not a Separatist Jedi?

Well.

Besides Cody, obviously.

Obi-Wan started coughing again, trying to do it as quietly as possible, so that it didn’t echo through the tunnels of the mine. His throat and lungs felt like they were full of grit, and while he did his best to remember to breathe through his nose and lessen that somewhat, it was getting harder and harder to focus, especially on multiple things at once. When he’d been around Master Dooku, his presence had made it easy for Obi-Wan to think things through. As soon as they’d left, though, it was like his entire sense of calm had been ripped away by the hot winds of Sevarcos.

The people shooting at them hadn’t helped either.

His thoughts had been eddying in sharp, panicky spirals as they’d raced through the tunnels, as they’d escaped the guards. Now though, his thoughts were racing, fizzling before they went anywhere and jumping from track to track like Sorgan frogs in spring. He kept getting distracted from the task at hand. He also felt unbearably hyper, energy buzzing under his skin uncomfortably. It made him nauseous.

He attempted to collect his thoughts, which felt an awful lot like playing 76-card pickup. Fuzzy thinking later. They were still in danger, he could feel the Force whispering alarm in his head. It was odd, how present the Force was at the moment. Obi-Wan had never exactly been a natural at connecting with the Force, but now? Reaching the point of contact that usually took a few hours of meditation, or an immediate, life-or-death threat of danger—it was child’s play. The Force whispered and danced and cried around him, and it was so _easy_ to give himself to it, so _easy_ to sense every molecule and presence around him. He almost wanted to follow the flow of it completely, leave his body behind for a while and chase the eddies and currents of the Force around him.

And yet…

And yet.

He could feel Cody gripping his hand tightly, trusting him to guide them through the darkness, trusting him to get them to safety, trusting him almost without _hesitation_. Cody was like an anchor, refusing to let him drift off. And the Force let him, whispered and giggled and allowed Cody to keep him on this plane. Obi-Wan couldn’t disappear when Cody still needed him.

Obi-Wan pushed away the idle currents of the Force, and collected his thoughts, and led them down a side tunnel. He stepped confidently, perfectly aware of where he and everything else was in the Force. Cody shuffled along behind him, one hand trailing along the wall.

Obi-Wan almost forgot what he was doing, when the Force practically _yelled_ for him to move. He shoved Cody behind a support beam, into a small, semi-hidden nook between the beam and the wall of the tunnel.

“Sir?” Cody asked.

“Shh,” Obi-Wan hissed, and Cody shut up immediately. With the hand that wasn’t clinging to Cody, Obi-Wan covered his own mouth, reminding himself to be quiet. The Force was so _loud,_ and it was so _hard_ to focus on what his physical form was doing.

After a few moments, they heard footsteps, and some time after that, a dim red light began to outline the walls and floor. Obi-Wan held his breath, and Cody stood very still.

Two people with a dim red lantern passed their small hiding spot. It was too dim to make out features, but Obi-Wan could sense that they weren’t miners.

He acted on a thought almost before he realized he was thinking it. As they passed him, Obi-Wan stepped out, grabbed them by the collar, and whispered Forcefully, “ _Sleep._ ”

He was surprised when the two of them dropped, and barely caught them before they collapsed hard on the ground. He stood there for a moment, trying to remember why he’d done that.

“ _Sir?_ ”

“Come steal a uniform,” Obi-Wan croaked, suddenly remembering. He coughed again. The grit in his throat was so _annoying_.

"I'm still in binders," Cody hissed.

Obi-Wan huffed, coughed, and put his hands around the cuffs, feeling for the latch. He'd broken binders enough during his padawancy that he could do it without thinking. Once he found the latches on each side, he snapped them with the Force. The cuffs slid to the ground with a _clunk_ , and Obi-Wan turned back to the task at hand.

The two of them quickly outfitted themselves in new disguises. Cody struggled with the tie around his neck, which Obi-Wan did for him. In turn, Cody helped him with the clasps of the short cape and the weapons belts, because his hands were shaking too much to get the stupid things to connect properly. Cody didn’t comment on it, for which he was thankful.

Cody’s uniform was a little short at the ankles, and Obi-Wan’s was tight across the shoulders and in the arm seams, but it would have to do. Obi-Wan also had far more weapons than he should, since Cody had insisted he keep the flashpistols he already had on him. He would have preferred to just have the stun baton and his lightsaber, but now he had an uncomfortable three slugthrowers on his belt as well.

Cody grabbed the lantern and gestured for Obi-Wan to take the lead. Obi-Wan took his unoccupied hand, and together they made their way through the tunnels.

Obi-Wan got turned around a couple times, distracted, but they eventually made it back to the main tunnel, and headed for the elevator. There were two guards flanking the elevator.

Obi-Wan took a deep breath, trusted the Force, and walked right between them.

They didn’t even seem to notice him and Cody.

Before they changed their mind, he hit the button to return to the top, and the elevator trundled upwards.

The guards at the top ignored them less easily.

“What do you think you’re doing?” one of them—a twi’lek—demanded, furious. “You shouldn’t be back up here unless it’s with those Republic spies!”

Obi-Wan couldn’t think of a response.

Luckily, Cody could.

“We were attacked in the mine,” Cody said, irritation in his voice. “Our comm’s busted, and this fool is probably concussed. I have to get him to the first aid station and get a new comm before I can go back down there.”

“Absolutely not!” the twi’lek said. “We need all hands on deck right now! If we let these spies escape, it will be _all_ our jobs!”

“I have kids, man,” the human guard said. “I can’t afford to get fired right now.”

“Well it’s not safe for _me_ to go back down there with a broken comm and a concussed partner!” Cody snapped. “Here’s an idea: why don’t _you two_ go down there? Me and him will stay up here and guard the elevator, we don’t need a comm for that. And it’ll be easier for me to yell for backup if we need it.”

The twi’lek looked like he was ready to argue about it, and he _wouldn’t_ be backing down.

Cody had the exact same expression.

 _It’s a good idea_ , Obi-Wan projected into the Force. _This is a perfectly reasonable compromise._ He hoped his presence was focused enough to influence at least the human guard. The twi’lek probably couldn’t be won over with mere projection, but the other seemed like a more reasonable sort.

“Come on, Toj,” the other guard whined. “Let’s not argue right now, it’ll just waste time.”

The twi’lek scowled for a moment, then huffed. “Fine,” he said, “but if I find out that you slacked off, or gods forbid, _let them escape_ , I’m making sure the supervisor knows _exactly_ who to blame, got it?”

“Loud and clear,” Cody said, with just the barest hint of sarcasm.

The twi’lek gave him an ‘I’m watching you’ sort of gesture, and then he and the other guard switched positions with Obi-Wan and Cody.

The guards made their way into the elevator, and once it began to descend, Cody and Obi-Wan breathed sighs of relief. Obi-Wan choked down another cough at the dust in the air, and then tried to figure out which tunnel led to their ship.

“We’re parked…” Obi-Wan said, and then trailed off, attention caught by a swirl of misery in the Force.

After a moment, Cody prompted him. “...We’re parked?”

“Right, sorry,” Obi-Wan mumbled. “Zone three.”

Cody approached one of the entrances with the lantern, and scanned the doorway. “No visible indicators of which is which,” he said. “Pick a tunnel, sir.”

It took a moment for the comment to register, and another for Obi-Wan to pick. “That one,” he said, pointing at one slightly spinwise of the front of the elevator.

Cody gave a nod, then started down the tunnel.

Obi-Wan hurried to catch up. “Better not get caught,” he whispered, grin in his voice. “Toj now _officially_ has a reason to report us to the supervisor.”

Cody snorted, and Obi-Wan grinned openly.

Still, they were quiet as they made their way down the tunnel, trying not to look suspicious in their uniforms.

In the end, it didn’t matter. There were no guards in the tunnel. Had Obi-Wan been thinking clearly, he might have thought it suspicious. As it was, he thought they might finally be having some good luck.

At the end of the tunnel, Cody opened the grate very slowly, very carefully, trying not to let it squeak. He pushed it up just high enough for them to peek out.

The ship was surrounded by guards. Typical.

Obi-Wan giggled. Cody slapped a hand over Obi-Wan’s mouth and dragged the two of them back down into the tunnel before they could be noticed, giving him an absolutely _disbelieving_ expression.

Obi-Wan continued giggling, almost uncontrollably. It was always something, wasn’t it? The day had started out bad and had only gotten worse, and they were _never_ going to catch a break. It was kriffing hilarious the way every mission escalated like a bad holodrama. He shouldn’t even be surprised at this point.

“Sir, what the kriff is wrong with you?” Cody asked. “Are you _actually_ concussed?”

That just made Obi-Wan giggle harder.

Cody glared at him in confusion for a moment, and then Obi-Wan saw his eyes soften into bleak understanding.

“Your mask is missing,” Cody said. “You’re higher than atmo, aren’t you?”

Obi-Wan considered a moment, then shrugged. He didn’t really tend to experiment with anything more than alcohol, having been in trouble too often with his master and the Council to stray outside the lines any more than necessary. Hell, he didn’t even really drink unless it was with his friends, and more often than not he was the one who stayed relatively sober and made sure all of them made it home. He supposed he might be in an altered state, but...he couldn’t really find it in himself to care much.

Except the nausea. And the itchy hyperness under his skin. He could do without that.

Cody made an irritated noise, and Obi-Wan shrunk into himself a bit. He didn’t _mean_ to make Cody mad, really! He’d just...kriffed up. Somehow. Again. Constantly.

“Great,” Cody said. “This is _fantastic_. Okay. Fine. General, I need you to be quiet, alright? Just—just stop giggling while I figure out a plan. Just be quiet.”

Obi-Wan could do that. Just be quiet—easy.

Well, actually, it tended to be a struggle for him, and a lot of people complained that he was always loud when he ought to be quiet or that he always said the wrong thing at the wrong time. But he _would_ do it. He was going to leave this planet with Cody, and he was going to meet up with his grandmaster after he got some answers, and he was going to be quiet so Cody could figure out how to make that happen.

And he _was_ being quiet, when suddenly, he felt something in the Force. A whisper of guidance, one that sounded so much like his master that he glanced back down the tunnel as if he might see Qui-Gon loping up to them, robe flaring dramatically and amusement glinting in his eyes.

The tunnel, however, was empty.

Cody’s head had whipped back towards the tunnel as soon as he noticed Obi-Wan looking. Spotting nothing, he turned back to Obi-Wan, and raised an eyebrow.

Obi-Wan, took a breath to collect his thoughts again, then tugged Cody’s hand away from his mouth and said, “I’ve got a plan.”

“...Oh?” Cody asked reluctantly.

Obi-Wan nodded probably a bit too much. “I’ll distract the guards,” he said. “You sneak onto the ship and get it in the air, and then I’ll jump to it.”

“You’re going to get _shot_ ,” Cody said.

“The Force is with me,” Obi-Wan said dismissively. He didn’t want to have an argument about this, not when he was more sure of it than anything else since he’d woken up ten years in the future, and that phrase usually worked for non-Jedi.

Not for Cody, though.

“Don’t forget you can’t use your lightsaber without catching the planet on fire, either,” Cody said. “And these pistols are all single shot. And the _guards_ have a lot more of those single shots than _we_ do.”

“The Force is with me,” Obi-Wan repeated, and surprised himself with how intensely he believed it. The Force _was_ with him. Even now, he could feel it settling around him, allowing him to focus. “You can have my guns if you want. I don’t think I could shoot very well right now, not with a slugthrower. It would give you more of a defense, should you need it.”

“I’m not leaving you defenseless,” Cody said.

“I’m not defenseless, I have—”

“Do _not_ say the Force.”

“—a _stun baton_ ,” Obi-Wan finished.

“Which is a _close-range weapon!_ ” Cody said. “You keep at least _two_ of those pistols, sir.”

Obi-Wan grimaced, but unclipped only one holster from his belt and handed it to Cody.

There was a noise from further down the tunnel, and the two of them jumped.

“If we’re going to do this, we’d better get going,” Cody muttered, clipping the holster to his own belt.

Obi-Wan gave him an almost feral grin, one Cody would have expected from Ahsoka, and bounced up and out of the tunnel.

Cody watched as Obi-Wan sprinted up to the guards, yelling, “Quick! Help! They’re in the main spaceport, we need as much backup as possible!”

This was _not_ going to work.

“For _two spies?_ ” someone asked.

“Worse!” Obi-Wan said. “One of them’s a _Jedi._ ”

There was cursing, grumbling, and nervous tittering, but all but two of them headed for the doors, absorbing Obi-Wan into their ranks.

How the _kriff_ did that work?

Cody took his chance a few moments after Obi-Wan and the guards were inside the spaceport. He squared his shoulders like the commander he was, put on his I’m-giving-anyone-who-even-looks-at-me-sanitation-duty expression and stormed towards the ship. He gave a sharp acknowledging nod to the two guards remaining, who gave nervous nods back before pointedly looking at the ground, looking very much like shinies who did not want to be noticed by a superior for any reason.

Once he was on the ship, he sighed in relief.

Which alerted the guard inside.

“Hey, what are you—”

Cody didn’t give them time to ask, whipping the stun baton out and slamming it into their chest. It crackled, and the guard dropped like a sack of fornaxes.

Cody grimaced, trying to decide what to do with them as he put away the baton. He couldn’t keep them here, not when he and Obi-Wan were about to leave the planet. He also couldn’t very well just toss them out, not with the other guards outside.

Well.

Not unless he was fast about it.

“Hey! Quick!” he called out, unconscious guard in his arms, as he ran back towards the guards.

“Huh?”

“What happened?!”

The guards rushed to meet him, and Cody flung the unconscious one into them. The three of them tumbled backwards into the sand, and Cody sprinted back up the ramp, slamming the button to close the door on the way. He raced through startup and got the ship off the ground as fast as possible, ignoring the demands from spaceport control that announced that he was not allowed to be leaving and demanded he explain himself.

As Cody ascended to above the rooftops, he spun the ship to see the rest of the spaceport, trying to spot—

_There._

Obi-Wan was in a different bay, now being chased by guards. He might have been hard to tell apart, wearing the same uniform as everyone else, if it weren’t for the fact that he was pulling some ridiculous acrobatics to climb to the roof of another ship.

And he looked odd, somehow. Almost blueish, in comparison to the other guards.

Cody hit the button to lower the gangplank again, hoping that everything near it was tied down securely. He buzzed low, hoping Obi-Wan was sober enough to do this maneuver.

The loud _crash_ and pained groan he heard as he pulled up seemed to answer that.

“You alright back there?” Cody called, hitting the close button and immediately ascending.

“Never better!” Obi-Wan said, and then giggled.

Cody rolled his eyes, but then had no time to focus on Obi-Wan. Two Separatist fighters had engaged pursuit.

“Land now, or we will have no choice but to shoot,” a tinny voice called over the comms.

Cody raised the rear shields and prepared to do some fancy flying. He put in the command to calculate the nearest safe hyperspace jump.

“This is your final warning, _Gloryhawk_ , return to your landing pad or we will disable your ship.”

“Hold on tight, General,” Cody warned. They were high enough that he could almost see space.

The fighters fired together, and Cody banked hard to avoid.

_Just a few more seconds._

They fired again. Cody swerved. And then they were out of atmo.

 _Come on, come on_.

There was a beep. Calculations complete.

Cody jumped to hyperspace.

He had no idea where they would end up, but anywhere was better than here. Cody engaged the autopilot, and went to check on the General. Who, oddly enough, seemed to be almost _glowing._

And not in the complimentary sense.

“This is Force banthashit, I presume,” Cody said with a sigh.

Obi-Wan blinked up at him for a moment, either lost in a spice haze or concussed from slamming into a shelf and somehow wrenching it off of its supports during his landing. There was a cut across his temple that he didn’t seem to notice. 

Obi-Wan grinned. “Hey Cody!”

Cody heaved the shelf off of Obi-Wan, and boxes of spare ship parts scattered everywhere. One box of rivets burst as it hit the ground, and its contents flew off every which way like industrial confetti.

The mousedroids were going to be very unhappy with him and Obi-Wan.

“Sir, are you aware that you’re glowing?” Cody asked, deciding that was a problem for later.

“Oh, ah...thank you,” Obi-Wan said, flushing a bit.

“No, uh—” Cody started, pulling Obi-Wan up. 

As soon as the General put weight on his right foot, he gasped, and would have collapsed if Cody hadn’t caught him.

“You’re _literally_ glowing blue, sir,” Cody corrected, swinging Obi-Wan up into his arms. It would be faster just to carry him to the galley and then release the med droid onboard.

Obi-Wan gave him a confused look, then looked at his hands to confirm for himself. He frowned. “Why?” he asked.

“As the resident Jedi, I was hoping _you_ would tell _me._ ”

“Oh.”

When Obi-Wan did not elaborate, Cody sighed and carried him to the galley. As long as this was the _only_ weird thing that happened, he could deal with a glowing General until Obi-Wan was sober enough to fix it.

He sat Obi-Wan down at the table, and went to retrieve the med droid.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Drug-free summary: Cody and Obi-Wan hide in the mines. Obi-Wan manages to put two guards into a Force-sleep and they steal the guards' uniforms in order to blend in and escape the mine. Once they are out of the mine, they run into two more guards, who demand that they get back to their jobs. Cody convinces these guards to switch places with them, and the guards go down into the mine while Obi-Wan and Cody use the tunnels below the spaceport to get back to their ship. The ship is absolutely surrounded by guards, and Obi-Wan distracts and lures away the guards while Cody steals the ship. Once Cody has the ship in the air, he swoops down to let Obi-Wan jump to the gangplank. Once they escape into hyperspace, Cody checks up on Obi-Wan, who is glowing, lightly injured, and underneath a shelf full of parts that he accidentally knocked over while getting into the ship. Cody takes Obi-Wan to the galley, and goes to find the ship's med droid. [return to top note]  
> .  
> .  
> .  
> .  
> .  
> Hi everyone, hope your 2021 is going well. Mine is, uh, not so much. There's been a lot of not-great stuff that has happened in my personal life in the last month, and due to that, I'm going to have to put this story on a bit of a slower schedule for a while than what I have been doing, as it's been getting somewhat difficult to work on writing. We're not quitting this story! But updates are going to be every other Friday instead of every Friday for a bit. Probably at least for the rest of January, maybe longer. We'll have to see.
> 
> Aside from that quick update, I hope everyone is having a great day! May the Force be with you!


	8. The Checkup

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After every mission comes a medical check.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is a panic attack at the beginning of this chapter and once again, a character is high for the entire chapter. There will be summaries for those who wish to skip such content here.

Obi-Wan seemed half-asleep in the booth seat when Cody returned with the small medical droid and a first aid kit. He had a death grip on the back of the seat, as though it was difficult to stay upright, and his face was buried in the crook of one arm. Cody might have thought he was, in fact, asleep, were it not for his uninjured leg bouncing and the fingers of one hand tapping along the edge of the booth. He reminded Cody unnervingly of Padawan Skywalker for a moment, who had always fidgeted when bored or nervous and who fidgeted even more when he was excited or concentrating. But Skywalker usually became more relaxed the longer he fidgeted. Obi-Wan was tense, very tense, and he didn’t seem to be getting any less tense.

Obi-Wan was also still glowing. He actually seemed to be glowing brighter, though Cody wasn’t sure if something had changed or if it was just the contrast of a dim galley as opposed to the bright sunlight of Sevarcos. The glow was almost the same color as Obi-Wan’s lightsaber. Idly, Cody wondered: if the same thing happened to a different Jedi, would they glow the color of their own lightsaber? If Vos had gotten in this situation, would he glow green or blue?

Then he shook his head. He very much doubted that  _ any _ other Jedi would manage to get into this situation.

Well.

Maybe Skywalker.

“General Kenobi?” Cody asked.

He could just barely see Obi-Wan’s brow wrinkle. Still responsive, that’s good.

“Padawan,” he mumbled.

Cody huffed a soft laugh, then said, “I brought the medical droid up to see you, figure out if your ankle’s just sprained or if it’s broken.”

Obi-Wan just hummed in response to that, which is how Cody knew that he was very much not alright.

Cody activated the droid—a retrofitted BD unit painted in healing teal and 212th gold. It took a moment to whir to life, but once it was booted up, it wriggled out of Cody’s arms and hopped to the floor like a little Loth-cat.

“I am BD-00P, a medical assistant droid,” it said. It had a neutral, tinny sort of voice, though it sounded much friendlier than battlefield tinnies. “Who is the patient?”

“General Kenobi, on the bench,” Cody said.

The BD unit bounced over to where Obi-Wan sat. “May I assess?” it asked.

“Go ahead,” Cody said, walking over to join them.

“I need permission from the patient to proceed,” the droid said.

When Obi-Wan didn’t respond, Cody bumped his arm with his hand. Obi-Wan caught his hand and held it.

“Sir?”

“Sorry,” Obi-Wan mumbled, though he didn’t let go. “Worried I’m going to...to disappear.”

“ _ Sir? _ ”

“May I assess?” the droid asked again, and while its vocabulator clearly didn’t have programmed inflections, it stomped a foot ever so slightly in irritation.

There was a slight hesitation, but Obi-Wan hummed a “Mm-hm.”

“That’s a yes,” Cody clarified for the droid.

BD-00P made a small head wiggle, then projected a scanning beam from its optical sensor, scanning Obi-Wan from head to toe, and then doing a smaller scan directly on the ankle, and then over Obi-Wan’s head. It swayed back and forth a bit in a little dance while it processed the results.

Cody was just about to ask Obi-Wan about what he meant about disappearing when the droid straightened up.

“Patient has a sprained ankle,” it said, “and a minor laceration on the head, and a first degree burn on the lower right abdomen. Has the patient taken any prescription or non-prescription drugs in the last forty-eight hours?”

“Yes,” Cody said.

The droid gave a little whirr at that. “May I take a blood sample from the patient?”

Obi-Wan’s head shot up. “Why?” he asked, a bit sharper than Cody expected.

“A bacta shot will be the most effective treatment,” the droid said. “But if the patient has taken prescription or non-prescription drugs in the last forty-eight hours, or if the patient is not Standard Human, there may be adverse interactions.”

“I’m Standard Human,” Obi-Wan said.

The droid tilted its head, almost like it was trying to do an eyebrow raise. “Standard Humans do not have bioluminescence at such a high intensity. May I take a blood sample?”

“...Fine,” Obi-Wan grumbled, and Cody marveled at how cooperative he was being. When they got back, he was going to tell Bones that Obi-Wan  _ would, _ in fact, take medical advice from a cute little droid.

The droid jumped up onto Obi-Wan’s lap, then onto the table. Obi-Wan barely seemed to notice, staring blankly at the spot on the floor where it had been standing.

“Please place the patient’s arm on the table.”

Obi-Wan didn’t move. Perhaps Cody had judged too quickly on his cooperativeness.

Well, Cody had a hold on his hand already, so he figured he might as well help the droid.

As soon as he moved, though, Obi-Wan’s grip tightened, almost panicked. His head shot up, and Cody could see genuine  _ terror _ in his expression.

“It’s alright, General,” Cody said, putting his other hand over the hand he was already holding. “The droid’s here to help you. It’s not going to harm you.”

Obi-Wan grimaced and shook his head fervently. “I-I—” he stuttered, seemingly at a loss for what to say. His free hand grabbed Cody’s arm in a bruising grip.

“What is it sir?” Cody pulled back a little, looking around the kitchen. Maybe it wasn’t the droid? Did Obi-Wan sense danger?

Obi-Wan’s grip tightened, though he didn’t pull Cody closer. Not an external terror, then. Cody focused back on Obi-Wan. His breathing was getting faster and shallower, whatever it was that he was afraid of was starting to make him actually panic.

He seemed to be glowing brighter too.

“General, I’m right here,” Cody said, slowly, calmly. “We’re on the ship. We are safe. You are safe.”

Obi-Wan couldn’t look him in the eye, shaking his head.

“You  _ are _ safe,” Cody said.

“The patient seems to be experiencing a panic attack—” the droid said.

“Shush,” Cody said. “Gen—Obi-Wan, can you focus on my voice? Focus on me, I’m right here.”

Obi-Wan squeezed his eyes shut, but nodded. Tears were starting to escape down his cheeks.

“I need you to focus on your breathing, Obi-Wan. Take a few deep breaths with me, okay? Breathe in...Breathe out…”

Cody just focused on getting Obi-Wan to breathe for the moment. If he could just get the General to calm his breathing, everything else would follow.

It took several seconds, but Obi-Wan started to calm down a bit, at least enough to talk.

The first thing out of his mouth of course—

“I’m sorry!” Obi-Wan sobbed. “ _ I’msorryI’msorryI’msorry— _ ”

“Hey, hey,” Cody said soothingly. Obi-Wan stopped talking immediately, choked sobs a poor imitation of the breathing count they’d been doing.. “It’s okay. It’s okay, Obi-Wan. You don’t have to take a blood test if you don’t want to.”

“It’s not—” Obi-Wan said, before breaking into another sob. He was starting to panic again. “It-It’s—”

Cody led him back into focusing on his breathing. The air felt increasingly heavy in the cabin, and it felt like the whole place was pressing in on them, but Cody pushed aside his own bubbling worry and stayed focused on his mission.

“Please don’t leave,” Obi-Wan whispered, almost begging. He was  _ terrified _ , and Cody didn’t know why.

But he did know what to say. “I won’t leave. I’m right here, Obi-Wan.”

Obi-Wan’s shoulders sagged in relief, and his head dropped forward a bit, just enough to rest against Cody’s. The air suddenly felt so much lighter, enough that it left Cody feeling almost dizzy.

“You’re okay, Obi-Wan,” Cody said. “I’m right here, I’m not leaving you.”

“I’m sorry,” Obi-Wan whispered. 

“It’s okay, Obi-Wan,” Cody said. “It’s all okay.”

They were quiet for a moment, Cody breathing calmly, Obi-Wan a mix of struggling to follow along and frightened, half-choked sobs. Cody moved one hand to rest on the back of Obi-Wan’s neck, giving comfort the way he would for any brother.

“I don’t want to disappear,” Obi-Wan said.

“You won’t,” Cody said. “Just focus on your breathing and stay with me,  _ vod _ . You’re gonna be fine.”

Obi-Wan’s breathing was still mostly sniffly-sobs, but he was finally starting to calm down, years of meditation training finally starting to kick in. Cody rubbed comforting circles into the back of Obi-Wan’s neck, doing his best to keep his General grounded.

Once Obi-Wan’s breathing had settled and the sobs had been reduced to the occasional sniffle, Cody asked, “You alright, General?”

“Yeah,” Obi-Wan said softly. Then, with a noise that was almost a laugh, he mumbled, “‘m really dizzy though.”

“That’s probably the head wound,” Cody said. “Or the spice. Or the panic attack.”

“Yeah, probably,” Obi-Wan said. “Or the Force.”

“I really hope not, sir,” Cody said. “Pretty sure the droid can’t diagnose the Force.”

“I am not equipped to detect anything of the Force except the midichlorian count of a blood sample,” the droid said.

“Let’s get you patched up, General,” Cody said. “And then you should probably get some rest.”

“Yeah,” Obi-Wan said. “Okay.”

Cody managed to convince Obi-Wan into letting go of his hands long enough that he could clean up and bandage the cut on his head. There had been what seemed like an awful lot of blood to clean up, but that was pretty normal for head wounds. The droid had convinced Obi-Wan to let it take a blood sample, and after begrudgingly admitting that he was, in fact, Standard Human, it told him his midichlorian count was high enough to qualify him as a Jedi and then said that the spice levels in his blood were currently too high to safely interact with a bacta shot. It recommended wrapping compression bandages around the ankle, keeping it elevated, and applying a coldpak in the meantime.

“Do you want me to wrap that for you, General?” Cody asked.

“I can do it, thank you Cody,” Obi-Wan said, pulling the compression bandages out of the kit. “It’s hardly the first sprain I’ve had to take care of.”

Cody wiped the remaining blood off of his hands and Obi-Wan’s face, then settled a hand on Obi-Wan’s shoulder. It would keep the General assured that he was still there while giving him two free hands with which to bandage his ankle. He gave the General a quick look-over just to make sure he and the droid hadn’t missed anything. The white guard uniform was a loss—he doubted the sonics would be able to get the bloodstains out completely. Obi-Wan’s glow had finally started to dim, which Cody hoped was a good thing. Obi-Wan was wrapping the bandage around his ankle exactly how Bones had taught Cody to do it—clearly, he hadn’t been fibbing about it not being his first.

Cody started talking. It was always good to keep a conversation going when doing medical stuff; it kept a brother’s mind off their injuries and it allowed Cody to keep an eye on how alert they were.

“When you said you were afraid you were going to disappear,” Cody said, “what did you mean by that?” 

Obi-Wan frowned as he wrapped another round. It took him a moment before he said, “The Force wants to keep me.”

“You’re a Jedi, doesn’t the Force already have you?”

“No, not—not what I meant,” Obi-Wan said. “I mean like the way it keeps my master.”

“The Force wants you...to die?”

“No!” Obi-Wan said, frustrated. “It’s...it’s not like that.”

“It certainly sounds like that, sir, but I’ll admit I don’t know much about the Force.”

“There is no death, there is the Force,” Obi-Wan said, so automatically that Cody assumed it must be one of the Jedi Rules. Like how vode march ahead, Jedi are kept by the Force.

They were still  _ dead _ though.

“Sir…”

He wasn’t sure how to have this conversation. He wasn’t sure that they  _ should _ have this conversation.

“Have you ever seen an ocean?” Obi-Wan asked, determinedly wrapping his ankle.

“Yes,” Cody said, not quite sure what to do with the non-sequitur, but perfectly fine with a change of subject. “Kamino—where I was created—is an ocean planet.”

“So—so then imagine the Force is like an ocean,” Obi-Wan said, and Cody held back a sigh as he realized that this  _ wasn’t  _ a change of subject, that rather he was about to get another baffling metaphorical conversation about the Force. “A-and the average person pretty much splashes around where the beach touches the water. Jedi would be like people who can swim—we go out deeper, we might even go underwater, but even we don’t tend to explore how deep it goes. There’s legends—probably nerfshit, but they might  _ not _ be—where Jedi would go too deep into the Force and then just  _ disappear _ . Like, they  _ literally _ disappear. A-and it’s weird, because  _ every _ culture of Force-sensitives tends to have legends like that, which Qui-Gon likes to interpret as a high likelihood of it  _ not _ being a legend, and…”

Obi-Wan trailed off as he finished wrapping his ankle.

“I don’t know,” he finally said, voice soft. “I don’t know.”

Cody didn’t know either. 

“So you’re afraid of...drowning in the Force, then?” he asked. “Or...being lost at sea?”

“Yeah,” Obi-Wan said, cracking the coldpak to activate it. “But it’s easier when you’re nearby. You’re like an anchor...no, wait, I—I think I’ve mixed my metaphors. I don’t know, it’s stupid, I’m sorry.”

“If it’s important to you, General, it’s not stupid,” Cody said.

“That’s, uh—” Obi-Wan said, and then hesitated for a moment before saying, “that’s really kind of you to say, but it’s not true at all.”

“It is on this ship,” Cody said, putting as much sincerity as he possibly could into the words. He didn’t know how to project emotions like a Jedi, but he was damn well going to try.

Obi-Wan gave him a look that said he clearly didn’t believe him, but also that he wasn’t going to contradict him. Instead, he studied the coldpak in his hands, flipping and spinning it carefully, like it would give him an answer if he just knew the right combination of movements.

Finally, he said, “Being around you keeps me...grounded, I guess. I don’t—I don’t know why, exactly, but it’s just...it’s harder to get lost in the Force, because I can’t just disappear because you still need me here, and...and the Force allows that, for now.”

“Okay,” Cody said, still not understanding exactly but willing to leave that explanation for when Obi-Wan was sober. “Well that’s good. Don’t go disappearing on us, General, Waxer would never forgive you.”

“Wouldn’t want to upset Waxer,” Obi-Wan mumbled. Cody thought it might have been intended to be dry humor, but Obi-Wan sounded very sincere.

“He has the  _ worst _ kicked tooka eyes,” Cody said. “It’ll have you apologizing for everything you’ve ever done.”

Obi-Wan giggled a bit at that. “Bant’s the same way,” he said. “I can’t get away with  _ anything _ around her, and it got ten times worse when she became Master Kit’s padawan.  _ And _ she taught it to her padawan-brother, Nahdar. He’s ten years old and he can convince  _ anyone _ into  _ anything _ with big eyes and a sad little wobble.”

Cody huffed a laugh. “Little brothers seem to be particularly good at that.”

Obi-Wan quirked a smile at that, but didn’t say anything. After a moment, his smile dropped into a frown, and he set the coldpak under his ankle, which rested on the bench. Cody wasn’t sure that was exactly considered  _ elevated _ , but at least it was more elevated than the floor.

Cody gathered up the bloody wipes and the wrappers of the medical supplies they’d used, then put them in a waste receptacle and washed his hands. Once he’d done that, he returned to the booth, and Obi-Wan caught his hand again. His glow was dimmer than candlelight now, and he seemed lost in thought.

“You still with me, General?” Cody asked, leaning on the back of the booth.

Obi-Wan hummed a neutral note, which Cody took as a positive sign towards ‘yes.’

After a moment, Obi-Wan sat up straight, like he’d just remembered he had homework due. “Cody, are  _ you _ alright?”

“I am,” Cody said, amused.

“Are you  _ sure? _ Nobody hurt you while you were on Sevarcos, did they?”

“Nothing lasting,” Cody said.

“That’s  _ not _ a no.”

“May I assess?” BD-00P asked, and Cody glared at it.  _ Traitor. _

He sighed, then asked, “Do I need to take off my armor?”

“Yes.”

Cody rolled his eyes, then pulled off the white uniform shirt and started undoing the clasps of his armor as well as he could one-handed. Once he’d set the metal plates gently on the floor, he realized that there were scorch marks all over the top half of his blacks. He frowned, annoyed; this was his favorite set, the one that fit best somehow despite the fact that all of them were identical.

Once that was finished, the droid asked again, “May I assess?”

“Go ahead,” Cody said.

The BD unit scanned him from head to toe, then scanned him again just across the torso. It danced for a moment, and said, “The patient has mild bruising along the left arm and across the abdomen and lower back. There are also first degree burns across the chest and lower back and lower right ribs. I recommend using topical bacta treatment for all injuries.”

“See? That’s hardly injured,” Cody said. “The most annoying thing about it is that they ruined my best set of blacks.”

Obi-Wan still looked concerned, and Cody automatically ran a soothing hand over the General’s hair like he was an over-worried cadet. “I’m fine, General,” he said. “Tomorrow I’ll be just like new.”

“You’re  _ burned! _ ”

“It’s no worse than a sunburn, I promise,” Cody said. “Just got tapped by a stun baton, that’s all.”

Cody wasn’t even lying, but Obi-Wan didn’t look like he believed him. That was projection, plain and simple.

“There is topical bacta solution in the first aid kit,” BD-00P said.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m getting there,” Cody said, undoing the clasps of the top half of his blacks.

“Do you want...help?” Obi-Wan asked. “I mean, you helped patch me up, it would only be right to return the favor. Unless you don’t want help! I just—”

“That would be great, General,” Cody said, reaching for the med kit. “Thank you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Drug free summary (+ panic attack):  
> Cody returns with the medical droid to find a very stressed Obi-Wan, still glowing, seemingly glowing brighter than he was before. The droid begins to scan Obi-Wan, identifying that Obi-Wan has a sprained ankle and other minor injuries but cannot proceed until Obi-Wan gives permission at every step. Cody bumps Obi-Wan to try and get him to pay attention to the droid, but Obi-Wan, panicking, grabs his hand and tells him that he is afraid that he's going to disappear. This spirals into a panic attack, and Cody does his best to keep Obi-Wan grounded, reminding him that he is safe and Cody is with him. He manages to get Obi-Wan to calm down, and the droid proceeds with the checkup.
> 
> Return to the rest of the story here, or Drug free summary (post panic attack):  
> Once Obi-Wan has calmed down, the droid takes a blood sample and informs him that his wounds cannot be treated with a bacta shot at this time. Cody bandages Obi-Wan's head and Obi-Wan wraps his ankle while he tries to explain to Cody why he is afraid of disappearing. He mentions that the Force would like to keep him and makes a confusing metaphor about the ocean that Cody doesn't quite get, but basically states that there's legends that if a Jedi delves too deeply into the Force, they will literally disappear. He tells Cody that it's easier to stay grounded when Cody is present, because the Force recognizes that Cody needs Obi-Wan around. Cody tells him that that's good, because Waxer would be very disappointed if Obi-Wan just disappeared on them. Obi-Wan then asks if Cody was hurt during the trip, and after a quick scan from the droid, they discover that Cody has bruising and minor burns from his fight. The droid recommends a topical bacta solution, and Obi-Wan offers to help Cody with his injuries the way Cody helped with his.


	9. The Lull

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ahsoka's busy, Cody's having a long day, and Anakin's all alone for once.

Ahsoka was woken by her comm, rather than her alarm. Blindly, she thrust her arm in the direction of her desk, missing the mark a few times before finally finding the little thing. Blearily, she struggled to focus her eyes on the string of words that demanded her attention. Already there were things that needed her immediately.

She groaned a complaint into her pillow, then dragged herself to her feet. She stumbled through getting ready as quickly as her sleepy feet would allow, changing from her pyjamas into a dress and leggings, grabbing a few pieces of nerf jerky from her desk, pulling her boots on, and then booking it out the door.

The morning was spent dealing with metaphorical (and in one case, not so metaphorical) fires, and then Ahsoka barely had time for a ration bar as she walked through the hallways before she was sucked into holomeetings with people who were  _ not _ pleased to be dealing with a fifteen-year-old instead of Master Kenobi or General Skywalker. She lost count of how many times she had to say, “Unfortunately, General Kenobi is on an away mission, and General Skywalker is medically indisposed.” Several times, she offered to let people speak to Captain Gregor or Captain Rex if they were unwilling to speak to her, the Commander.

Very few took her up on that. Most of them simply told her to take a message down for when one of the Generals was able to call back. She was kind of offended at how often natborn officers treated her like a glorified secretary, but she also didn’t want to deal with any extra responsibilities at the moment, so she pushed away her offense to deal with later.

At one point, she was actually contacted by  _ Chancellor Palpatine _ , a holocall that left her shaking from nerves. He had been very polite, inquiring as to how the mission was going, as the Jedi Council had been unwilling to share details. Ahsoka had also been very polite, telling him that it was going as well as it could be under the circumstances, and that either the Generals or the Council would update him as soon as they were able.

“Of course, my dear,” the Chancellor said. “No doubt you are all very busy securing the freedom of the Republic, and knowing the reputation of your masters, the situation changes minute-by-minute in our favor. However...would it be too much of an imposition for you to bring this call to General Skywalker?”

“I’m sorry, Chancellor, but Master Skywalker is currently medically indisposed.”

“I’ll be sure to say nothing that would place undue stress on him or worsen his condition,” Chancellor Palpatine assured her. “I merely wish to see for myself that the boy is alright. He is a very dear friend of mine.”

“I understand, Chancellor,” Ahsoka said—and she  _ did _ , she felt that way every time the medics kept her out of the medbay, insisting that Skyguy or Rex or anyone else she’d come to visit needed  _ rest _ _ — _ “But unfortunately it won’t be possible. I’ll be sure to have him call you as soon as he’s able.”

For a moment, the Chancellor looked absolutely furious, and she nearly jumped out of her skin at the  _ wrath _ she saw in his eyes. But then she blinked, and he was back to his typical kindly, grandfatherly self.

It must have been just a glitch in the projector.

“Thank you, my dear Commander,” he said with a grateful smile. “I do worry so very much about young Skywalker.”

“I’m glad he has such a caring friend, Chancellor,” Ahsoka said, with a slight bow.

Chancellor Palpatine signed off soon after that, and Ahsoka collapsed into the chair.

“Are you alright, Little’un?” Rex asked, coming up beside her and putting a hand on her shoulder. 

Ahsoka nodded, trying to regulate her breathing.

Then, after a moment, she shook her head.

Rex pulled her into a hug, and that did better at grounding her than anything else. She clung to him tightly, burying her face into his shoulder. She didn’t even know why the conversation had unnerved her so deeply; the Chancellor had never been anything but kind to her in the brief moments they’d spent around each other, and this conversation had been one of the least confrontational and most understanding she’d had all day.

“You did everything just fine, kid,” Rex assured her.

“That was the  _ Chancellor, _ Rex!” Ahsoka hissed into his shoulder. “I just had a conversation with the  _ Chancellor of the Republic! _ And I told him  _ no! _ ”

“Kix will be  _ so _ proud,” Rex said teasingly.

That got a small giggle out of her. Still, she didn’t let go. Her heart was racing a parsec a second, and she didn’t want to deal with anything else until she got herself under control.

Rex and Gregor let her take a few minutes and calm down, and for that she was extremely grateful. Once the terror of having an unexpected meeting with the Chancellor had worn off slightly, she slowly pulled back from the hug and smoothed her hands over her dress, embarrassed that she’d been so dramatic over nothing. She took a deep breath. It was okay. She was okay.

Anakin’s personal comm chirped at that moment. She almost  _ growled  _ in annoyance as she unclipped it from her belt and looked at the comm code. Her eyes widened as she saw who it was.

_ Padmé Amidala. _

Obi-Wan had fallen asleep on the bench by the time they dropped out of hyperspace. He had also, finally, stopped glowing, which Cody hoped was a good sign. Hopefully, that meant that Obi-Wan wasn’t in danger of disappearing anymore, if, indeed, he ever had been, and the fear hadn’t just been spice paranoia.

Cody returned to the cockpit to see where they’d ended up. According to the ship’s computers, they were still in Separatist territory. There was a green planet below them, not identified by name in the ship’s codex. Scans indicated no major cities or military bases.

It would do.

Cody brought them down into the atmosphere, searching for a place to land for a bit. The air was turbulent; he’d come down in the middle of a storm, hoping it would help decrease any enemy visibility. The wind was vicious, and the rain was thick. Hopefully the storm would make it harder for anyone to follow them down.

He kept flying, looking for a clear area to land. As he flew, the storm calmed somewhat, but the rain still pelted hard against the ship. Whatever planet they’d landed on appeared to be in the middle of its rainy season.

The planet’s surface had a dense covering of trees as far as the eye could see, but Cody finally came across a spot that was thinned out enough to land the ship. As they got closer to the ground, he realized that underneath the trees was swampland, and he hoped that the seemingly-solid land below him would actually hold the ship.

Cody put down very,  _ very _ slowly.

The landing gear sunk into the mud as he touched down, but only about half a meter, and Cody breathed a sigh of relief.

He powered down the ship, so no errant Separatist or pirate scanners would pick up on it. Then, he began to search for whatever trackers Dooku’s minions had put on the ship, because he was  _ certain _ there would be at least one. 

He started with the cockpit, since he was already there, looking for both any physical tracker and anything they might have downloaded onto the ship’s computers. He found a tiny bug on the underside of the copilot’s station, already blinking red, and smashed it before moving on. Any minion worth their spice would have put at least two trackers on the ship, one easily found, and one much more cleverly hidden.

Cody then moved to the galley.

He  _ really _ shouldn’t have been surprised that Obi-Wan wasn’t there. At this point in his life, he  _ really _ shouldn’t.

BD-00P wasn’t there either, though.

“General?” Cody called out.

There was a mechanical whistle from further down the hall, and Cody poked his head out of the galley just in time to see BD poke its head out of the crew quarters.

“The patient is experiencing nausea and vomiting,” it said as soon as it saw him. “The patient also vehemently expressed a wish to be left alone, and though my programming prevents me from leaving a patient in such conditions completely unattended, I recommend that you check in with the patient at a later time. I am currently monitoring the patient and will alert if conditions worsen.”

Cody sighed, but he supposed he wasn’t surprised. Obi-Wan had already been feeling dizzy before he’d fallen asleep, and he didn’t like flying at the best of times.

“Is he in the fresher, then?”

“Yes.”

Cody nodded, and said, “Tell me if he starts glowing again, or anything like that.”

“I will alert if conditions worsen,” the droid confirmed.

The droid popped back inside the room, and Cody sighed again, pinching the bridge of his nose. This mission was going  _ so _ well.

He turned back to the galley. He still had a bug search to conduct.

Anakin woke up to a quiet apartment.

He was curled up under the bed, buried under every blanket he could find except the few he had under him to insulate him from the durasteel floor. The bed in his room was so soft it made him dizzy to lay on it, and he would have slept in Obi-Wan’s room but Obi-Wan wasn’t here and he wasn’t sure Obi-Wan would be pleased to find out Anakin had been in his room while he was away. But Anakin didn’t mind sleeping under the bed. It made it harder to get to him, and there was a droid vent in the wall that he could use to escape if necessary (though he  _ had _ been lectured by a mousedroid in the middle of the night for blocking access to the room. Apparently they cleaned his floor between two and three am every week on the same day, and it had been very unhappy that he was disrupting the schedule. He’d apologized several times and promised to give it a tune-up to make up for it).

But now there were no mousedroids bumbling around the room, no quiet footsteps from the living room as Ahsoka tried to go about the day without waking him, and no loud snoring from her either. The way she snored was weird, more of a constant motor-like rumble rather than the  _ snooook-wheeze _ sound that most humans made. But it was absent now; she wasn’t sleeping.

Cautiously, he slid out from under the bed and tiptoed to the door. He pressed his ear against it, and listened. Hearing nothing, he opened the door.

The living room was empty. The refresher was empty, too. He listened at Ahsoka’s door. There was only silence. He knocked. There was no answer.

It was quiet.

Anakin realized suddenly that this might be the first time he’d been alone since he’d been on Padmé’s ship. It was...odd. Everyone had kept such a close eye on him.

Maybe they were finally starting to trust him enough to leave him to his own devices.

Or maybe it was a test.

Watto did that sometimes. He’d leave out money or valuables to test if they’d try and take them. Anakin and his mom weren’t stupid, though. Everyone always thought slaves were stupid.

Anakin could wait.

He took a sonic shower and then got dressed in one of his red uniforms. The uniforms were warmer than his tunics, but space was still really cold, so once he’d done that, he got back under his blankets. Except the patchy one, which he just hugged.

This was the first time he’d been alone since Tatooine. He could breathe for a moment, think about things.

He missed his mom.

He missed his mom so  _ badly _ .

He closed his eyes tight so no tears would escape. If she were here she’d remind him not to waste water over things that can’t be changed.

He wished she were here.

Anakin twisted his hands up in the patchy blanket, holding so tightly that he was afraid he’d rip it if he moved.

He hoped she’d died running, at least.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A shorter chapter, but necessary for setting up some dominos. Everyone say hi Chancellor Palpatine... :)
> 
> Happy February! I don't know where January went, but it certainly hurried on its way. We'll still probably be on an every-other-week updating schedule for now, but we may get back to our normal weekly schedule end-of-Feburary or early March. We'll see!


	10. The Call

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ahsoka has an uncomfortable phone call, and Obi-Wan and Cody find out that the planet they're on is...odd.

Cody didn’t know the name of this planet, but he decided that the Separatists could keep it.

He was knee-deep in swamp muck. The rain was drenching him even underneath the trees, and it was disgustingly hot. He should have put his own armor on before going outside. It probably wouldn’t have prevented his socks from getting soggy, but the filtering in the helmet would have made this whole experience slightly more bearable.

And he would be able to tell if the prickling on the back of his neck was due to the rain or...something else.

This planet felt _off_ , and he would very much like to leave as soon as possible. He didn’t feel like he was being _watched_ , exactly, but there was... _something_.

He wondered if Obi-Wan was feeling the same way inside, or if he was still too sick to be feeling much of anything else.

Cody shook his head. The sooner he cleared the ship of tracking devices, the sooner they could leave. He ducked under the belly of the ship, on a hunt for long-range bugs.

Ah, there it was.

Cody pulled the tracker off the underside of the ship, tossed it in the air, and shot it with the slugthrower he still had on his hip. The _bang_ barely even echoed in the thick rain.

That was three trackers so far: two inside, one outside. Any more than that would be overkill by Cody’s standards.

He still had to check the roofside of the ship, though.

He slogged through the water, trying to figure out if there was a ladder somewhere on the outside of this ship, when the gangplank lowered. Obi-Wan stood at the top, lightsaber lit. He looked awful; he was far paler than he normally was, his hands shook badly, and while his weight was balanced on both bare feet, the sprained ankle was clearly still hurting.

“Cody? Are you alright?” Obi-Wan asked, stepping out slowly. Rain hissed as it hit his lightsaber. The undertunic he was wearing was drenched almost immediately, as was his hair.

“...Yes?” Cody said, not quite sure what Obi-Wan had sensed.

“I heard a slugthrower shot.”

Oh, _right._ Cody could see why that might be worrying.

“I was destroying a tracker, sir,” Cody said, “I’m sorry for alarming you.”

Obi-Wan opened his mouth to say something, then looked sharply towards something in the distance, readying but not raising his lightsaber. Cody turned to face whatever it was, switching slugthrowers in case he needed a shot.

He scanned the swamp for the threat, and saw...little glowing lights.

At first he thought they were firebugs or something, outlines made fuzzy by the rain, but firebugs blinked, and these lights were steady. Most of them were yellow, but a few were blue or green. They bobbed and floated, and slowly drifted toward the ship.

Cody stepped closer to his Jedi, focused on the periphery of the glowing lights, in case they were a distraction. “Sir?” he asked quietly, once he was just below and to the left of the gangplank.

“Whills-wisps,” Obi-Wan hissed. “They’re physical manifestations of the Force in places where the Force is really strong. Qui-Gon says—”

He froze, suddenly. Cody pointed his slugthrower at the few lights that seemed closest, though if these were Force things, he doubted that he’d be able to do anything to them.

Obi-Wan’s lightsaber suddenly shorted out, and he dropped it like it had burned him, flinching back. Automatically, Cody grabbed it, preventing it from rolling into the water.

It wasn’t hot.

“ _Sir?_ ” Cody asked. The lights were getting closer, and Cody was wondering if he should blast them, or try and use the General’s lightsaber. The lightsaber might work better on Force manifestations. Then again, considering that it had just shorted out, it might not work at all.

Obi-Wan didn’t appear to have heard him, focused intently on the lights. 

Cody _really_ hated Force nerfshit.

Obi-Wan took a shaky breath, then took a step forward. Then another. Slowly, almost like he was in a trance, he descended the gangplank towards the lights.

“General, do _not_ follow those things into the swamp.”

The lights bobbed up and down at that, almost like they were laughing at him. Cody glared at them, keeping both the slugthrower and the lightsaber at a low ready in case he needed them. 

The lights bobbed and swayed, unperturbed.

“He is my friend,” Obi-Wan said softly.

Cody’s eyes flickered towards Obi-Wan, then back at the lights, which were still inching closer. “Are they _talking_ to you?” he asked.

Obi-Wan nodded absently, taking another step forward. “It’s not so bad, Master,” he said.

Taking a risk, Cody shoved the slugthrower back into its holster and grabbed Obi-Wan’s arm, keeping him from walking off the gangplank. He still kept Obi-Wan’s lightsaber in his left hand. Maybe the little Force lights weren’t a threat, but he wasn’t going to bet Obi-Wan’s life on it. Gree had once told him about little floating lights that certain creatures in the swamps of Mimban produced to lure prey into deeper waters to drown and eat them. This could be the same thing.

The lights were now starting to surround Obi-Wan. He reached out and cupped his hands together so one of them could land in them. One of the wisps floated towards Cody, and he waved it away with his left hand. The wisp darted out of reach, but others were still floating around him.

“I understand,” Obi-Wan whispered, bowing his head.

Cody wondered why he could see the Force lights but not hear what they were saying. Usually it was all-or-nothing with the Force.

Obi-Wan made a little choked noise, and Cody whipped towards him. His eyes were squeezed shut, and he gave a short nod.

One of the little lights bumped into Cody’s face, and he flinched back. It barely felt like anything, and yet, it also _felt_ like something. Cody was overcome momentarily with an overwhelming sense of both _grief_ and _love_ , and he tightened his grip on Obi-Wan’s arm, almost caught off-balance.

“Yes, Master,” Obi-Wan rasped. He was crying again, Cody realized, though it was difficult to tell with the rain. The little lights were clinging to Obi-Wan now, landing on his tunic and in his hair.

Then, suddenly, Obi-Wan stumbled backwards as if he’d been pushed, falling onto the gangplank. The little Force lights all went out as a red blaster bolt shot through the trees and bounced off the ship.

If Obi-Wan had stayed standing, it would have killed him.

“Get on the ship!” Cody shouted. “Get it running!”

Obi-Wan scrambled up, and Cody focused on the threat. He could hear a _schlork-schlork_ noise through the rain, like clankers walking through mud.

Cody flicked the switch of Obi-Wan’s lightsaber. Miraculously, it lit up. With his other hand, he grabbed his slugthrower, regretting that he hadn’t switched out weapons _before_ deciding to search for trackers.

Droids gleamed in the light of the lightsaber. Only four of them, which surprised him. _Where were the rest?_

“The Jedi!” the one in front announced. “Shoot to disable!”

There was a small chorus of “Roger Roger”s, and Cody moved to get away from the ship. The droids shot wildly, mostly missing him in their attempt not to hit him anywhere vital.

Which didn’t make sense. Why would they shoot to disable? They’d always shot to kill before.

Dooku wanted Obi-Wan alive, when he hadn’t before.

Cody wondered what had gotten him to change his mind.

One shot actually got close, and instinctively, Cody swung the lightsaber. It connected with the blaster bolt, deflecting it into a nearby tree.

Cody filed that away to freak out about later, and shot the droid. Then, not having time to reload the slugthrower, he shoved it into his holster, put two hands on the lightsaber, and charged forward.

The water dragged at him, and slowed him down, but it was doing the same with the droids, and somehow, they didn’t seem to expect him just to run at them, swinging a lightsaber wildly. He dispatched the remaining three with ease, grabbed up a blaster, and made his way back to the ship, scanning the trees for any other clankers as he went. More would be coming, he was sure of it.

“Get this ship off the ground!” he shouted once he was up the gangplank. The engines got louder, and then they jerked upwards, free of the mud. Cody slammed the button to close up the ship, and ran for the cockpit.

He couldn’t _wait_ to be back in Republic space.

Padmé Amidala was calling.

Ahsoka was _not_ prepared to deal with this.

“Rex! It’s Padmé!” Ahsoka said, looking up at him desperately.

“ _Kriff_ ,” Rex said, which was not helpful at _all_.

“Padmé?” Captain Gregor asked. “The senator from Naboo that’s friends with General Kenobi?”

Rex and Ahsoka gave each other a _look_. Bad enough that everything that was already going on was happening. Best if they didn’t also give away all of Anakin’s secrets when he couldn’t do anything about it, no matter how poorly-kept those secrets were.

“We’ll leave you to talk to the Senator in peace,” Rex said, getting up quickly and shuffling Gregor to the door.

“ _Rex!_ ” Ahsoka said, betrayed that he’d leave her to deal with this herself.

He gave her the battle sign for ‘good luck’ as he left. She responded with something rude, but he was already gone.

The comm was still pitifully crying out for someone to answer it.

Ahsoka made an irritated growl, then answered it. A tiny blue Padmé popped up on the ‘proj, bending over slightly to look at something outside of view. A mirror, Ahsoka assumed, considering that Padmé was taking pins out of her hair.

“ _Ani,_ ” Padmé said. “You haven’t commed in — _Ahsoka?_ ”

Ahsoka gave a pained smile. “Hi, Senator Amidala,” she said.

Padmé actually seemed thrown off for a moment before her perfect composure was back. She was wearing Senate regalia, so Ahsoka assumed she must have just gotten home. “Please, Ahsoka, call me Padmé. How are you? How is An—erm, General Skywalker?”

Ahsoka panicked for a moment, trying to decide if she should tell Padmé what was going on. On the one hand, Anakin and Padmé were clearly _very close_ , and Padmé and Obi-Wan were old friends, so she really kind of had the right to be informed of what was going on.

On the other hand, _Ahsoka_ barely even knew what was going on. And this was Jedi stuff. The sort of Jedi stuff that even normal civilians would call unrealistic if it was the plot of a holovid.

And Padmé had a bad habit of getting _involved_ in things, almost worse than Anakin did. She was too much like Obi-Wan—perfectly composed and reasonable to outsiders, so when she did something reckless, everyone around them assumed it was for the best. If she knew something bad had happened, Ahsoka had no doubt that Padmé would rush to help, and they couldn’t add another loose cannon to the chaos that was already happening in this sector of space.

No, Ahsoka decided, they couldn’t tell Padmé what was going on. Not yet.

“I’m...great!” Ahsoka said, and winced at how unconvincing it sounded. “And Skyguy is, well, Skyguy.”

Padmé gave her a judgemental look that, frankly, she totally deserved. She looked _just_ like Obi-Wan when she did it, too.

Then, Padmé’s look softened, and she asked, “Ahsoka, what’s wrong?”

To her horror, Ahsoka felt her eyes well up with tears. It wasn’t _fair_ , and now Padmé was going to _know_ something was wrong, and it wasn’t even like this was that bad, she’d just caught Ahsoka at a bad time, and—

“We’re fine,” she choked out, squeezing her eyes shut and pressing a hand against her face to hide the worst of her stupid breakdown. “We’re okay, I’m just— it’s just been a long week, that’s all. I’m sorry.”

“You have nothing to apologize for, Ahsoka,” Padmé said. “But if you want to talk about it, I’m here for you.”

Ahsoka shook her head. “It’s nothing, really,” she said with a sniffle. “This mission just kriffing sucks.”

“Ah,” Padmé said, understandingly. “The boys aren’t fighting too much, are they?”

Ahsoka shook her head. “They’re not fighting at all,” she said.

“Really?” Padmé asked. “That’s good to hear. Sometimes I swear they’ve been arguing since the day Anakin became Obi-Wan’s apprentice.”

Ahsoka gave a hollow, fakey laugh at that. Padmé gave her a _very_ concerned look.

“Ahsoka, is someone hurt?” Padmé asked. “You’re not yourself.”

“No!” Ahsoka assured. “No, we’re fine. Well, Obi-Wan was, but the medics said he’d be fine. He was on light-duty restrictions yesterday, but he should be back to normal duties now. A-and Hardcase broke his wrist, but Kix said it should be fine by the end of the week.”

“Anakin’s not fighting with you, is he?”

Ahsoka shook her head. “No,” she said. “We’re fine, really. This mission, it’s just—”

She stopped for a moment. She didn’t want Padmé to think it was going _badly_ , even though it _was_ , because there wasn’t any point in stressing her out.

“—it’s just really stressful, that’s all,” Ahsoka said.

“Have you talked to Anakin about this? Or Obi-Wan?”

“Oh, trust me, Senator, if _I’m_ stressed about it, _they’re_ ten times as stressed. It’d be selfish of me to add to that,” Ahsoka said. Then, after a pause, she mumbled, “Wouldn’t it?”

“It’s not selfish to go to your mentors when you’re struggling, Ahsoka,” Padmé said gently.

Oh, and now Ahsoka really _was_ crying. This kriffing _sucked_.

Padmé made small soothing noises as Ahsoka tried to get herself under control. Ahsoka forced herself to go from sniffles to deep breaths, and slowly let the Force have her upset emotions, just like Plo had always taught. It left her feeling drained and empty, and in want of a cup of tea.

Finally, she wiped her eyes. “Sorry,” she mumbled.

“You have nothing to apologize for, Ahsoka,” Padmé said.

Ahsoka sniffled but didn’t argue, even though she didn’t believe it herself. “So, uh…” she said, trying to figure out a subject to change to that wasn’t her embarrassing breakdown in front of her master’s secret girlfriend. “Wanna tell me why you’re calling?”

“I was hoping to speak to your master,” Padmé said.

“Oh,” Ahsoka said. “He’s not available.”

“Clearly,” Padmé said wryly. “Why do you have Anakin’s personal comm?”

“Umm...because I _am_ available.”

“I see,” Padmé said. “Is Obi-Wan around?”

“He’s not available either.”

“Because he’s in medical?”

“No…” Ahsoka said.

“Ahsoka, _what_ is going on?”

“Tell you what, once one of them becomes available, I’ll have them comm you back, okay?” Ahsoka said.

Padmé gave a small sigh. “Alright, Ahsoka,” she said. “But please don’t forget to tell them.”

“Yes, sir,” Ahsoka muttered automatically. “I have things I have to get to, but I’ll tell them. Bye Senator Amidala.”

Ahsoka cut the comm before Padmé could reply, and carefully clipped it to her belt. Then she put a fist against her mouth, and screeched in frustration.

This whole thing _kriffing_ sucked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Oprah voice* "You get a crying session! You get a crying session! Everybody gets a crying session!"
> 
> I didn't actually intend to make the whole trio cry but...I guess it's just one of those Taungsdays. Well, actually, I don't think I made Anakin actually cry yet, but the grieving is just crying on the inside, so kinda. Everything is just A Lot for everyone rn lmao.


	11. The Unknown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jesse begins his investigation. Ahsoka finds Anakin after a long day.

Jesse had asked around, and had come up with two mechanics who had been working with Anakin. They were, conveniently, working together when Jesse found them.

“What do you think of Sparky?” the speedie was asking, elbow-deep in the guts of a fighter.

“Good, if you want to subvert expectations,” the older one said from on top of the fighter. “I’d expect a Sparky to either be full of pep or have a quick temper, so it’d be kinda funny for a calm, serious cadet to have.”

“ _ Not _ a cadet.”

“Barely.”

The not-cadet sighed. “Not Sparky, then. I don’t want my name to be funny.”

“Good to recognize,” the older one said. “Figuring out what you do and don’t want from a name is an important step— _ Lieutenant Jesse! _ What can we do for you?”

The not-cadet fumbled a hydrospanner as he tried to untangle himself to salute. Jesse “at ease”d almost immediately, but the hydrospanner hit the ground with a loud clanging, and the kid tried to freeze and stutter excuses and go to an automatic resting stance all at once.

Ah, poor shiny. Jesse gave him another month before he started to be comfortable around any sort of brass, even brass like  _ Jesse _ .

“Pick up your spanner, ‘60,” the older one said, good-naturedly. “This engine isn’t gonna fix itself, and this scout isn’t here to interfere with our job.”

‘60 glanced nervously between the two of them, and Jesse gave him a nod. The kid scrambled for his spanner, and immediately buried himself in the engine, like he could get deep enough to disappear from Jesse’s notice.

“What do you want, Lieutenant?” the older one asked lightly.

“You’re Dimple, right?”

“That’s me. This is 2460.”

Dimple carefully treaded the line between formal and informal. No doubt he was aware of what Jesse was like, but they hadn’t interacted enough yet for him to have decided whether to treat Jesse like a brass or like a vod.

Jesse leaned against the hull of the fighter. “I heard you two have been working with the  _ ad’ika _ General,” he said.

“Yeah,” 2460 said. “I mean, we were, sir, before the last battle.” 

“How was he doing?”

“What do you mean by that?” Dimple asked.

Jesse shrugged. Dimple gave him an annoyed frown.

“He seemed fine to me,” Dimple said. “Not much different than usual, except the part where he didn’t know any of us.”

“Yeah?” Jesse asked.

“Yeah,” Dimple said. “Honestly, he’s one of the easiest shinies I’ve ever dealt with. Knows his way around a ship’s engine, eager to please and eager to help. He’s a lot less social than he is normally, but he’s warming up to the men pretty quickly. Already told us all about his podracing and everything.”

Jesse nodded thoughtfully. “And what about you, Shiny? How do you think the little General’s doing?”

“Just like Dimple said,” 2460 said, “though I can’t say how close his behavior is to normal, I haven’t been with Torrent long enough to know what the General’s usual behavior is. The General is really nice, though.”

“Alright,” Jesse said.

“Um, I do have a question, though, Lieutenant,” 2460 said, and immediately looked like he wanted to take those words back.

“Go ahead.”

“You, um, you talk to the Jedi a lot, right? I mean, ones that aren’t even in Torrent?”

“Sometimes,” Jesse said.

“They, um...they don’t have parents, right? That was covered in the flash-training on Jedi culture, that they don’t have nat-born family structures.”

“Well, biologically speaking, most of them do,” Jesse said. “But no, they’re raised a lot like us at the beginning, with older Jedi watching over the cadets, and then Generals will take a Commander as their own. When a commander is made a padawan, then they’re part of their general’s lineage, which is sort of like a nat-born family, and the general acts sort of like a parent, but no, they don’t really have parents.”

“Oh,” 2460 said. “It’s just that, the General and I were talking about names, and he mentioned that his  _ mother _ gave him his name, and uh, that she died recently.”

“Ah,” Jesse said. “Our general’s a bit of a special case. General Skywalker came to the Temple a bit older than everyone else, so he  _ does _ have parents. Or, well, did.”

“Oh,” 2460 said. “Thanks, sir, for the clarification.”

“Of course,” Jesse said. “Thanks, you two, for your time. I’ll let you get back to your duties.”

They exchanged salutes, and Jesse headed off, puzzling through things. Dimple said that Anakin didn’t act much different than normal. But he  _ did _ act differently around Rex and Kix and the Jedi,  _ worryingly _ so, and Jesse had seen that for himself. But why? What made Rex and Kix so much scarier to a natborn than Dimple and 2460?

Well, the shiny was still practically tube-wet, so maybe he was just less intimidating? He knew that shinies often found the Captain intimidating—but then again, Anakin liked Captain Gregor, and that special forces Ghost was far more intimidating than Captain Rex. But did he act  _ different _ around Gregor?

Well, he still needed to talk to that 212th scout. Once he gathered enough preliminary data, he could start drawing conclusions, or, at the very least, start figuring out what else he needed to figure out.

When Ahsoka finally had a chance, she returned to her quarters. There was nothing she wanted to do more than just flop on the couch and wallow in her misery, but she knew that if she did  _ that _ , she wouldn’t be doing anything else for the rest of the night.

And she could sense Anakin’s presence in the rooms somewhere, feeling similarly miserable. If something didn’t change soon, they were going to end up in an emotional feedback loop. They probably already were, honestly; Anakin was way too open to their bond, and Ahsoka hadn’t even thought about closing herself off—Anakin was always shielded, so she never had to worry about it before.

She wasn’t sure he’d left the room at all today, and  _ that _ she felt guilty about. She’d been so busy, she hadn’t even told anyone else that he’d been left behind. Hell, she hadn’t even noticed herself.

Ahsoka sighed; she was going to have to set up a babysitting rotation or keep him with her until Obi-Wan came back.

She started the kettle, because she  _ needed _ something comforting before she dealt with this, and both Plo and Obi-Wan always made tea for her when she was having a rough day. 

Master Plo had always poured her a lesson with her tea. Usually, it was, “Remember, youngling, you can’t pour tea from an empty teapot.”

While the water boiled, she got into Anakin’s stash of candy and  _ good _ ration bars that he didn’t know she knew about. She fished out a muja-flavor bar and two Nubian mini candies that Anakin always seemed to get more of after a visit to the Senate (she wasn’t sure if his provider was Padmé, Representative Binks, or Chancellor Palpatine, but she knew that he got grouchy when some of them... _ mysteriously _ disappeared) and then she knocked on Anakin’s door.

“You in here, Skyguy?” she asked quietly, opening the door when there was no response. It was possible the kid was asleep.

She spotted a slight movement under the bed and immediately dropped to a crouch. There was a cadet-sized bundle hiding underneath Anakin’s patchy blanket. She could tell by the tenseness and the occasional sudden tremble that he wasn’t asleep.

“Skyguy? You okay?”

“Mm-hm,” the blanket hummed, though at a pitch and tone that Ahsoka could immediately and easily read as a lie.

It was  _ really _ frustrating sometimes, how her master and her grandmaster hid their pain. She could  _ help _ them, she was sure of it, if they weren’t always so  _ stubborn _ .

“Did you get lunch? I wasn’t able to get away to check on you.”

“Mm-hm,” Anakin said. “Artoo took me.”

“Kinda surprised Artooie isn’t still with you, then,” Ahsoka said, moving to lay on the floor.

“He went to go bully Fixit,” Anakin said. “He said I couldn’t come though because my memory databanks have been so corrupted that I think Fixit’s a good droid.”

Ahsoka snorted. “Sounds like Artooie,” she said. “Want a candy? I think you’ll like it.”

She held the candy out. Slowly, Anakin peeked out from under the blanket. Despite their agreement last night to be friends, he still acted wary about her. She tried not to take it personally. He’d been getting better about it over the last week—they’d even gone almost all of yesterday without him acting like this—but in the slower moments, and around food, he got all wary and nervous, like he expected something to be a trick.

Still, he took the candy. He watched her carefully as he unwrapped it, and shoved it in his mouth like he was worried she was going to take it away from him.

She wondered, suddenly, if he’d been bullied back on Tatooine. Was that why he was so shy? She had  _ met _ Human younglings before, she had had friends among her crèchemates, and even the shy ones didn’t usually take  _ this _ long to warm up to someone, especially when it was one-on-one rather than a group. Not unless they were outcast by the other children in their clan.

Anakin scowled at her. “Every time you look at me you get sad,” he said bluntly.

“Sorry,” she said. “I’m just worried about you.”

“Well, don’t be,” he said.

“I can’t help it, you’re my Master,” Ahsoka said.

Anakin tensed at the words. Ahsoka frowned,  _ now _ what had she said wrong?

“Skyguy, you’re like a brother to me,” she said. “It’s my  _ job _ to be worried about you, just like it’s Obi-Wan’s job to be worried about you. We’re pretty much a family.”

Anakin frowned at that, and thought about it while he chewed on the candy. She could practically see gears turning in his head. If he was a droid, his fans would have probably kicked into overdrive.

The tea kettle started shrieking, and he flinched.

“Do you want some tea, Skyguy?” Ahsoka asked.

Anakin made a face. “Do  _ all _ Jedi like tea?” he asked.

Ahsoka smiled. “Not all of them,” she said. “But a lot of us do, and a great many more will take it if it’s offered, even if they don’t make it for themselves.”

Anakin frowned, but nodded.

Ahsoka passed him the muja bar. “Here, go ahead and eat this while I make the tea. It’s good, I promise.”

Ahsoka left him in his room, and went back to the kettle. She made two cups of ginger tea, and added some purple honey to Anakin’s, because she knew he preferred his much sweeter than she did.

The ration bar was gone when she got back. She held the mugs with the Force while she sat back down, so she didn’t spill them, then held the sweet one out to Anakin. “Careful,” she said, “it’s hot.”

Anakin finally crawled out from under the bed, sitting just close enough that he could take the cup from her. Carefully, he took a sip. 

And wrinkled his nose. “This isn’t tea,” he said.

“Uh...yes? It is?” Ahsoka said, confused.

“Nuh-uh,” Anakin insisted. “I mean, it’s not  _ bad _ , but Qui-Gon made tea for me and Padmé when we were on the ship, and it doesn’t taste like this.”

Ahsoka didn’t laugh, but she couldn’t stop herself from projecting amusement into the Force. “Skyguy, tea doesn’t just come in one flavor,” she said. “This is ginger tea. I don’t know what kind of tea Qui-Gon gave you, but if his preferences are anything like Obi-Wan’s, it’s probably some kind of black tea, or some sort of caffienated herbal blend.”

Anakin frowned. “How many kinds of tea is there?”

“Thousands,” Ahsoka said. “The Temple only keeps a few hundred kinds in stock—the most common ones, and a few kinds that we grow ourselves—but trust me, if you experiment a lot, you’ll find something you like. And you can always find a Jedi with a new kind to try that they picked up on some random planet somewhere.”

They were quiet for a few moments, sipping their tea. Ahsoka could feel Anakin’s thoughts buzzing around next to her, and put her shields up a little higher. If he couldn’t do the shields right now, she would have to, if only to keep his thoughts from overwhelming her.

And it was the polite thing to do.

They sat in silence, drinking their tea and thinking their thoughts. Finally, Anakin mumbled, “I can’t feel Obi-Wan anymore. But I  _ know _ something bad’s gonna happen, and I can’t feel him at all!”

Ahsoka cocked her head. That wasn’t  _ all _ of it, she could tell, but if that’s what he’d trust her with, that’s what she’d help him through.

“You mean through the bond?” she asked. “He’s too far away, Skyguy. You guys have a crazy strong bond, but he’s several solar systems away by now. But don’t worry, Master Obi-Wan’s really good at getting out of trouble, and Cody’s there to protect him.”

Anakin didn’t seem to believe her, but focused on something else for the moment. “Bond?”

“Yeah, Force Bond. So, when a master and a padawan are a good match, and they trust and respect each other, they can reach out in the Force and form a bond. It doesn’t do much? Exactly? But it makes it easier to sense how the other person is feeling and if they’re hurt or in danger, and if your bond is  _ really _ strong, sometimes you can even communicate a clear thought or two. Some people also have bonds with their close friends, I think Master Obi-Wan and his friend Bant have one but I’m not entirely sure. And Master Obi-Wan has a broken one too, with Master Jinn. That’s what hurt him so badly the other day when you guys had just left the medbay and we were talking about paying attention to medics.”

“And Obi-Wan and I have a bond?”

“Yes,” Ahsoka said. “You and Obi-Wan have a really strong bond, to the point where you guys can sense each other from opposite sides of a planet. And you and I have a bond as well, because I’m your Padawan. Here, I’ll show you.”

Ahsoka closed her eyes, and tugged gently on the bond, the way she always did when she wanted Anakin to come find her. 

Anakin drew a sharp breath. Good, he could sense it just fine. She sent a wave of affection down the bond, and opened her eyes.

Anakin was frowning in contemplation. “Can you make it...not work?” he asked. “Without breaking it?”

“Um, not exactly?” Ahsoka said. “If you put up your shields, then you can mostly block the bond, and the other person would have a harder time knowing what you’re feeling and sensing what’s up, but usually if you have a bond with someone you trust them enough to...not do that.”

“I don’t have shields,” Anakin said. “Obi-Wan says I can’t learn them until I know how to do push-pull.”

“Well, I don’t think that’ll be very hard for you to do,” Ahsoka said. “Push-pull’s just a game we play to teach initiates to use the Force consciously. We could play right now if you want to.”

Anakin nodded and put his tea aside. Ahsoka did the same, and placed the other candy in between them.

“So to play push-pull, all you have to do is move the candy with the Force,” Ahsoka said. “You move it to me, and then I’ll move it to you. And then once we have that figured out, I’ll pull it to me, and then you pull it to you. Alright?”

“ _ That’s _ push-pull?” Anakin asked. “Qui-Gon had me try to do it on the ship. I couldn’t get it to work.”

“You just have to keep trying,” Ahsoka said. “Using the Force consciously is kind of different than using it instinctively, but try to summon the feeling that you remember from the last time you used the Force.”

For some reason, that made Anakin anxious. 

Ahsoka frowned. “Do you want me to do it first?”

Anakin nodded.

“Okay,” Ahsoka said. “Try to sense what I’m doing, and then copy it, alright?”

Ahsoka really had no idea how to  _ teach _ someone to play push-pull. It was a game that she’d been playing since as early as she could remember. She wasn’t even sure she’d ever  _ learned _ it, it had just happened.

But Anakin was completely open to the bond, so he should, theoretically, be able to feel exactly what she was doing in the Force.

She put a hand up, and with a gentle push of the Force, she sent the candy sliding over to in front of Anakin. Then, just as easily, she pulled it back towards her. She repeated the gesture a few more times, and then said, “Ready to try it?”

Anakin still looked doubtful, but he nodded.

He put up his hand just as she had, scrunched his brow in concentration, and...nothing.

He tried again. And again. And again. The candy didn’t even  _ wiggle _ . The Force was completely unmoved by Anakin’s efforts.

After about two minutes, Ahsoka stopped him. “You’re getting frustrated,” she said. “Let’s finish our tea, and then meditate a bit, and then try again, okay?

“I can do it!” Anakin snapped.

“You can,” Ahsoka said, pointedly calm. “But not if you’re angry. And anyway, the tea’s going to get cold if we don’t drink it soon.”

Anakin scowled, but mumbled, “Fine.”

He settled back down and drank his tea, still glaring at the candy. Ahsoka tried to project a feeling of calm and serenity, the way she’d always remembered the crèchemasters feeling. Hopefully Anakin would follow her example, and let his feelings of frustration go.

As she drank her tea, Ahsoka hoped that Obi-Wan returned soon. She didn’t know what she was doing, wasn’t equipped to be doing this on her own at all. Obi-Wan had already raised Anakin once; this should be easy for him. Ahsoka hadn’t raised anyone before, and definitely had no idea what to do with someone who hadn’t been raised the Temple way.

Something dropped onto her shoulders, and Ahsoka flinched. She glanced over, and saw that it was one of Anakin’s blankets—not the patchy one, but a blue-and-white striped one that Obi-Wan had given him during a winter holiday on one of the planets they’d liberated. Anakin wormed his way under both the blanket and her arm, snuggling up to her, and muttered, “You’re  _ brooding _ again.”

“Sorry,” Ahsoka said, moving the cup to her other hand and wrapping Anakin in a sort-of one-armed hug. 

He wrapped both his arms around her waist, officially making it a hug, and she smiled a bit. In moments like this, he acted exactly the same as he always did.

“Ready to do some meditation?” Ahsoka asked.

Anakin grimaced at that, wrinkling his nose in an adorable imitation of a look Ahsoka was quite familiar with.

Yes, in moments like this, he acted  _ exactly _ the same as he always did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to March, everyone! I'm hoping to get back to the regular posting schedule soon, either next week or the week after, we'll see!


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